My Residency Interview Experience At West Virginia University

Day Before

I drove down to Morgantown, WV for this interview. I had applied to the neurology residency program at WVU. They provided accommodation at the Hilton Garden Inn which is very comfortable. They had a pre-interview dinner at one of the local restaurants. The hotel provided a free shuttle to and from the dinner as well as the interview. The food was delicious and they had a wide range of choices. We were accompanied by a chief resident and a PGY3 resident. They were very friendly and were happy to answer all our questions. They also gave us pointers as to what to expect on the day of the interview. We reached the hotel at about 9 pm after dinner.

The Interview

The interview day began at 7.45 am. The hotel shuttle departed at 7.15 am. So make sure you are not late. Even if you have driven down to Morgantown, it is better to take the shuttle because you do not want to be worrying about parking in the morning. One of the interviewees arrived late to the Grand Rounds due to parking problems. There were about 8 residents schedules to interview on that day. The candidates were split into a morning session and an afternoon one. I was in the afternoon session. Hence after the grand rounds, I had a break for 90 minutes and then a tour of the hospital. During this period, the morning session had their interviews. We then had a noon conference with lunch. In the afternoon, I had interviews while the morning session candidates took the tour and left for the day. There were 5 interviews with different faculty, including the Chair, Program director and Assistant director. The interviews were pretty laid back and casual. Just the regular questions which everybody must have prepared, like Tell me about yourself, 5 year goals etc.

My Opinion

WVU is a good program. The are 4 positions every year. WVU is a categorical program and as Internal Medicine is included, one does not need to worry about a prelim position. They interview about 40-50 candidates every year it appears which is not a bad ratio. The city is not great and it is difficult to find much to do outside residency. However, the faculty are too good and very friendly. I was impressed by the fact that they took the pains to mail a letter to candidates after the interview expressing their pleasure of meeting you. They probably send this out to everybody. But I still felt it was a nice touch. A downside is that they do not have much fellowship opportunities. They only have a Clinical Neurophysiology fellowship. Of course, this can also be a good thing as you get to do more than you would if there was a fellow.