NRMP Residency Match Application Profiles:
Family Medicine Match Applicant Profile

• How did you decide on your specialty?
• How did you prepare yourself for application to your chosen specialty?
• Who wrote your letters of recommendation for your application?
• Which programs did you apply to and why?
• What kinds of questions did programs tend to ask you?
• What would you have done differently in applying?
• What was the most difficult part of the application process?
• What should I look for on my interview and tour day?
• What questions should I ask of residents, faculty, and program directors?
• How did you form your rank list?
• What advice can you give seniors applying in your specialty?

How did you decide on your specialty? Before the clinical years, I had volunteered and precepteed under several good family doctors and really enjoyed the wide variety of patients we encountered-from kids to pregnant moms to veterans, you never really know who would walk through the door. Still, I wanted to keep my options open, and in my 3rd year rotations, I also found pediatrics and internal medicine to be really appealing, and briefly considered Med/Peds. However, I am more of a "clinic person" than a hospitalist, and just felt that family practice (FP) encompassed all the things I like about medicine: the diversity of patient age, background, and illness; the opportunity for patient interaction and continuity; and the chance to incorporate psychosocial issues and preventive care into my practice of medicine.

How did you prepare yourself for application to your chosen specialty? I did one 4 week elective/sub-I at a Kaiser facility (since my core rotation in family medicine was at a community hospital), to compare Kaiser to the community setting. I also went to the American Academy of Family Physicians Conference in Kansas City at the end of my 3rd year-they had a lot of information for students about applying as well as residency booths of different FP programs (to ask questions, get info).

Who wrote your letters of recommendation for your application? Some FP programs require 3 letters of rec's from 3 different fields (i.e. medicine vs peds vs surgery etc). In the end, I got 4 letters-2 from family practitioners, 1 from an internist, and 1 from a pediatrician, and just sent 3 out to each program (depending on which fields they required). It's probably a good idea if one of the letters could come from a higher ranking person of that field (i.e. chair of pediatrics or residency director of family practice), but I honestly don't know if plays a major role in the end. It's more important to ask people who really know you on a somewhat more personal level as well as professional level, as opposed to an attending who you had superficial contact with for your 4-or- so- week rotation.

Which programs did you apply to and why? I applied to 18 programs total, all in Southern California because that's where I want to live. Mostly I applied to community hospitals and Kaiser hospitals, because I am more interested in those settings than in an academic facility.

What kinds of questions did programs tend to ask you? For the most part they asked the typical questions: Tell us about yourself, your family. What brought you to choose medicine as a career? Why did you choose family medicine? Why did you apply to our program? What can you add/bring to our program? What do you see yourself doing in ten years? Some other questions: What is the hardest thing you have had to overcome? What is the hardest question you've had during these residency interviews?

What would you have done differently in applying? I would've applied to fewer programs. All 18 programs granted interviews, but I got too tired and started cancelling on the ones I was less interested in or offered interviews to me later. I think I landed out going to 9 interviews total.

What was the most difficult part of the application process? Probably the hardest part was writing the personal statement and thinking of who would write my letters. Friends who had been through it already had told me to start thinking about the letters as early as the beginning of my clinical rotations, but it wasn't until a little before the application process when the letters fell into place. I had a hard time thinking of what I wanted to say in my personal statement, since I wanted to show my enthusiasm for FP, but I couldn't honestly convey the same naêve "gung-ho" attitude about medicine that I had when I first entered med school.

What should I look for on my interview and tour day? The interviews all become a blur after a while-I don't really remember how each hospital looks, what kind of call schedule/rotation/benefits each one offers. The big thing is the general feel of a place, especially from a resident's point of view: How do the residents like their program? How do they interact with each other, do they hang out together outside of the hospital? Are these people you can fit in with and work with everyday for the next few years? Are the attendings approachable and people you can respect, yet feel free to ask "dumb questions"?

What questions should I ask of residents, faculty, and program directors? Definitely get the scoop from the residents-they are generally pretty frank, and can tell you from what they do and don't like about the program, to the details of things such as how they (the residents) get along, what a typical day is like, which rotations are good/bad, which ones are hard, what call is like on a specific service, how the food is like. Questions to consider asking the program directors: Is there a strength or emphasis on any specialty (i.e. some programs are particularly strong in peds or OB)? What changes are you planning to make in your program (i.e. moving the clinic site or improvements in the curriculum)? What do you look for in an applicant? Strengths and weaknesses of your program?

How did you form your rank list? Because I applied to only Southern Cal programs, location was not as much of an issue as it was for a lot of people. The top programs I ranked were places where I felt I would be able to work well with mostly everyone and feel at home at- I didn't need to be best friends with all the residents, but I wanted my residency to be as enjoyable (oxymoron? J) as possible; I'm kind of timid when it comes to speaking up, so I didn't want to be completely intimidated by fierce attendings. Other things I took into consideration were the patient demographics, how stable and reputable a program was, how close it was to my family.

What other advice can you give seniors applying in your specialty? The FP programs are generally more relaxed, and a lot of times it felt like I was interviewing them rather than they were interviewing me (unlike job or med school interviews). Find out what you are looking for in a program by asking about the things you are most interested in, and really look to see if you feel like you can fit into the place. Another thing to consider is to schedule some time apart between your interviews (more than 2 interviews consecutively is tiring and confusing to remember which program had what). If possible, for local interviews, find an easier rotation that will give you one day off a week and with attendings who are understanding about interviews. (I had dermatology where all Wednesdays were "independent study", plus they allowed a few more days off for interviewing). Save your chunks of time off for flying out to other interviews or just for vacationing and traveling. And finally, enjoy your 4th year and do some traveling while you can still fit it in!