If you read my most recent blog post you will know I interviewed at a total of 4 PGY-1 pharmacy residency programs. Here are descriptions of how each of them went to hopefully give you some insight into how interviews are.
Interview 1
This interview was a full day for me. It started at 8 am and ended around 4:30 PM. I had to wait in the lobby for the current residents to come and get me and found out I was not the only one. There were 5 other residency candidates waiting in the lobby as well, making us a total of 6. I thought in my head, well this is going to be interesting. As we all waited in the lobby we all got to know each other. First and foremost we were all female and also about 50% of us were from the current state while the other 50% were from out of state.
Our day started with receiving some goodies from the pharmacy department and sitting in on a presentation about the program from the residency program director (RPD). After the presentation, the residency candidates and I had to participate in a team building exercise. This was definitely something I was not expecting and it was a bit intimidating having all the current residents watch us solve the exercise. After the exercise we all had to work up patient cases. This patient case had a lot of different things involved but it was mainly focused on heart failure and Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). There was also some calculations involved including calculating BMI, IBW and CrCl.
After working up the patient cases, we all had individual schedules for the rest of the day. I went on a tour of the hospital (it was stunning) and afterwards met with everyone else for lunch, which was really nice of them to provide. After lunch I had to present my patient case in front of two clinical preceptors. They asked a lot of higher level questions and questions to help guide me through the case. After the case presentation I had a nice informal meeting with the RPD then was interviewed by a panel of pharmacists who asked a lot of different situational questions.
Overall it was a long day and I was super tired afterwards, but it felt great for my 1st ever residency interview.
Interview 2
This was a much shorter interview than my first one, it essentially lasted for about 2 hours 30 minutes. With this one, I didn’t see any other residency candidates except myself. It started around 8 AM, where I started with presenting a presentation I prepared before hand on a topic of my choosing. There was about 5 pharmacists who watched my presentation and overall it went quite well. Afterwards they asked me a couple questions pertaining to my presentation.
After the presentation, I was asked a series of situational questions by the pharmacists. It was actually one of the interviews that asked the most situational questions and a lot of them were tough. One of them that I remember was “tell us about a time you broke the rules and how you handled it.” I still to this day do not know the most appropriate way to answer this question and not sure if I answered it correctly. Afterwards I met with some residents who were not the PGY-1 residents which I found strange. Either way, I still asked my questions and then went on a tour of the hospital.
Interview 3
This interview was also not too long it lasted for about 4 hours from 12 PM to 4 PM. I was met by 4 other residency candidates in the lobby, a smaller number than my first interview, but still a good number. They first treated us with delicious lunch and then we embarked on the tour of the facility. During the tour, I will never forget how they showed us that they carried leeches in the pharmacy. Yes leeches. That was a first for me. Who knew leeches were seen like medication! After the tour I got to work up a patient case related to hypertension and diabetes, which was honestly a piece of cake for me. I remember smiling throughout working up the case. After my case presentation, I was interviewed by a panel of pharmacists of which I was asked a lot of situational questions. After the case presentation I went straight into another presentation I had to present, regarding a topic of my choosing. Lastly, I ended the day meeting with the RPD.
Interview 4
My final interview was also not too long it went from 12 noon till around 3:30 PM. It started with some information about the program with the Director of Pharmacy. The RPD was not present so the Director took over. After the informational meeting I received a tour of the hospital with one of the current residents. After the tour, I got to work up a patient case related to sepsis. After presenting the case I was asked a couple situational questions and was provided the opportunity to ask any questions I had and then the interview was complete!
Overall my interviews were great but also exhausting. I’m glad that stage of the application process is over. As you can see a big theme in all my interviews was getting asked situational questions. Also working up patient cases is a big occurrence in interviews. My advice is to be familiar with certain situational questions (you can go check out my blog post on common interview questions here) and read up on popular disease states seen in hospitals such as heart failure, arrhythmias, sepsis, hypertension and diabetes.
— Ms Rx Geek