The Other Side of the Table
For faculty who interview urology applicants
Ten minutes to make every interview fair, useful and fun. Pick your style, keep it on the rails, and give the next generation the kind of interview day that helped bring us into urology.
No one ever trained us to interview. We learned to take a history, to operate and to break bad news, but sitting across from a medical student was something we were simply expected to know how to do.
Most of our own interviews were great, and many of us still remember the faculty who made the day feel welcoming. A few of us also remember a question that should never have been asked. We can make sure every applicant gets the good version.
of urology applicants in one survey believed they had been asked an inappropriate question. Women were asked about plans for children nearly a third of the time.
Survey of 170 urology applicants, AUA Annual Meeting 2017.SAU guidelines, for interviewers
- Don't ask where else they're interviewing or how they'll rank.That includes program names, locations and specialties. Applicants owe you no answer.
- No commitments outside the Match.Don't ask for one, and don't offer one.
- No contact after the interview.Faculty and residents may not reach out. Don't require thank-you notes or letters of intent, and don't respond to them.
- No second looks.Don't offer one, and never suggest that visiting again helps.
- Format must be fair.Hold virtual and in-person interviewees to the same standard.
- Respect privacy.What applicants share with you stays confidential.
Not just awkward. Often illegal.
Marriage or partners, pregnancy or plans for children, childcare.
Age, religion, national origin (“Where are you really from?”), sexual orientation, gender identity.
Health conditions or disability, beyond whether they can meet the program's essential functions with or without accommodation.
Thinking on your feet is part of surgery, so a question that puts someone on the spot can be fair. Keep it rare, think it through beforehand, give it a clear purpose and ask every applicant the same one. Skip pure trivia and brain teasers.
If an applicant volunteers something personal, acknowledge it warmly, don't follow up, and keep it out of your notes and your rating.
Same topics for everyone
Structured interviews, where every applicant is asked about the same topics, are more reliable and less biased than open conversation, and applicants don't find them harder. Pick two or three before the day.
Tell me about a time you made a mistake on a rotation. What happened next?
It's 2 AM, a patient's urine output has dropped and your senior isn't answering. Walk me through it.
Describe a time you disagreed with someone on your team. How did you handle it?
What's something about urology that surprised you once you saw it up close?
What feedback has changed how you work?
What would you like to know about us? (Leave at least five minutes.)
More24 questions by part of the application, and build your own panel
Every question here stays clear of family, age, religion, origin, health, other programs and rank plans. Leave at least five minutes for their questions.
MoreInterviewing with a colleague or on a panel
Two chairs, one interview
Applicants are coached for one-on-one, two-interviewer and panel formats. Your side of a shared room needs a plan too, so the applicant meets a team, not a crowd.
- Agree on a game plan first.Before the first applicant, settle who asks which questions from your panel, who opens and who closes. Keep a short script: “I'm Dr. A and this is Dr. B. We'll each ask a couple of questions, then the rest of the time is yours.”
- Bring your colleague in.When the applicant asks something your co-interviewer knows better, hand it over: “Dr. X can speak to that better than I can.” It shows a faculty that works well together.
- Don't talk to each other over the applicant.No side comments, inside jokes or debating a point between yourselves. If you disagree with your colleague, save it for later.
- Write notes alone, then compare.Each interviewer writes notes and a rating independently before any discussion, so one strong opinion doesn't become two.
A 20-minute interview, start to finish
Open
Stand, smile, use their name, and tell them how the next 20 minutes will go.
Two or three questions
Follow up once (“Tell me more”), then move on.
Their questions
Protect this time. It tells you as much as your questions do.
Close, then notes
Thank them by name. Then write two lines on what they said and did, before the next applicant walks in.
- Read their application beforehand. It's a common courtesy, and the same one you'd want extended to you. Ask about something specific to them, but don't quiz them on it. (More in Reading the application, below.)
- Share the airtime. If you're talking more than a third of the time, you're giving a talk, not an interview.
- Close well: “What else should we know about you?” Then thank them by name.
MoreReading the application: letters, and what predicts a good resident
A few minutes with the file
Reading the application beforehand is a courtesy, and it makes your questions better. Two things reward a closer look: the letters, and what the evidence says the file can and can't tell you.
Reading a letter
- Specific stories: a patient, a night on call, a project, told in enough detail that only this applicant fits.
- A comparison with peers (“one of the best students I've worked with”), ideally with a frame of reference such as how many students the writer has supervised.
- Clear statements about judgment and ability, not only effort.
- A writer who says plainly they would want this person as their own resident.
- Generic praise that could describe any student: pleasant, punctual, hard working.
- Faint or hedged language: “did everything asked of them”, “should do well with close supervision”.
- A short letter from someone who supervised them closely.
- No comparison with peers, or praise for minor traits while clinical work goes unmentioned.
- Who wrote it matters. A urologist who worked with the applicant every day on a sub-internship knows more than a well-known name who met them once. Check the writer's role, and how long and how closely they worked together.
- Read it against the writer's habits. Some writers call every student exceptional. If you know the writer, compare the letter with their usual one.
- Home letters tend to run higher. In one urology analysis of standardized letters, letters from the applicant's home institution carried higher ratings in several domains (Nabavizadeh, Urology 2021).
For the 2027 application season, urology requires at least two standardized letters from urologists, submitted on a new online form in the AAMC Letter Writer Portal; PDFs of older standardized formats don't count (Program Director Associations guide, urology 2026 to 2027). The AAMC sample template shows what the form asks:
- Context: the writer's relationship to the applicant, where they observed them, for how long and how often, whether the applicant was a home or away student, and how many urology sub-interns the writer evaluates each year.
- Competency ratings: knowledge, patient care, technical aptitude, teamwork, communication, growth mindset, work ethic, resilience, professionalism, research, and leadership, each anchored to a level of training, from a third-year student up to a second-year urology resident.
- Overall: where the writer would rank the applicant in their own program, and short comments on what sets the applicant apart and where they can grow.
How to read it. The form tells writers that most applicants should be rated as meeting expectations, the level of an experienced fourth-year student, so treat that rating as solid, not weak. The top rating requires a behavioral example; read it, because a top box with a thin example is worth less. Weigh the predicted rank against how many sub-interns the writer sees and how much time they spent with this one. Earlier standardized formats rated most applicants near the top (Nabavizadeh 2021), so the examples and comments often carry the real signal.
What predicts a good resident
Less than we'd like. Most studies are small, come from a single program, and can only follow applicants who matched, so treat each finding as a hint, not a rule.
- Fairly consistentTest scores predict test scores.Licensing exam results track later in-training and board exam performance much better than faculty ratings of clinical work (Zuckerman 2018). For faculty evaluations, Step 2 CK has been the more consistent of the two (Lombardi 2023), and Step 1 is now pass/fail (Johny 2024).
- Urology dataClinical grades and a clean interview.In two Mayo Clinic series of urology residents, honors across the core clerkships and the absence of negative interview comments were independently associated with being rated an excellent resident (Thompson 2017; Thompson 2024). In the later series, letters were not.
- MixedLetters.Urology program directors rank letters as the most useful predictor of clinical performance now that Step 1 is pass/fail (Johny 2024). Outcome studies disagree: one orthopaedic program found exceptional letters associated with stronger residents (Su 2023), while the Mayo urology series did not.
- MixedThe interview.A broad review found mixed evidence that interview scores predict residency performance (Stephenson-Famy 2015). In the Mayo series what mattered was the absence of concerns, a hint that interviews may be better at spotting red flags than at fine ranking.
- Fairly consistentRed flags matter.Unprofessional behavior in medical school and failing a licensing exam are among the few factors associated with weaker performance in residency (Hartman 2019).
- Urology dataResearch predicts research.In one urology series, a publication before residency was the only application feature tied to an academic career, and research output during residency tracked having a research year (Thompson 2018).
Bottom line: no single element predicts much on its own (Hartman 2019). Read the whole file, trust specific clinical observations over adjectives, and use the interview to learn what the file can't tell you.
Find your style
Every persona follows the same rules. Only the delivery changes.
Make it the best part of their day. That's how great residents choose great programs.