Evaluating applicants to a new emergency medicine residency program: subjective assessment of applicant characteristics

Abstract

BackgroundBecause of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the Residency Review Committee (RRC) approval timelines, new residency programs cannot use Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) during their first year of applicants.AimWe sought to identify differences between program directors’ subjective ratings of applicants from an emergency medicine (EM) residency program’s first year (in which ERAS was not used) to their ratings of applicants the following year in which ERAS was used.MethodThe University of Utah Emergency Medicine Residency Program received approval from the ACGME in 2004. Applicants for the entering class of 2005 (year 1) did not use ERAS, submitting a separate application, while those applying for the following year (year 2) used ERAS. Residency program directors rated applicants using subjective components of their applications, assigning scores on scales from 0–10 or 0–5 (10 or 5 = highest score) for select components of the application. We retrospectively reviewed and compared these ratings between the 2 years of applicants.ResultsA total of 130 and 458 prospective residents applied during year 1 and year 2, respectively. Applicants were similar in average scores for research (1.65 vs. 1.81, scale 0–5, p = 0.329) and volunteer work (5.31 vs. 5.56, scale 0–10, p = 0.357). Year 1 applicants received higher scores for their personal statement (3.21 vs. 2.22, scale 0–5, p < 0.001), letters of recommendation (7.0 vs. 5.94, scale 0–10, p < 0.001), dean’s letter (3.5 vs. 2.7, scale 1–5, p < 0.001), and in their potential contribution to class characteristics (4.64 vs. 3.34, scale 0–10, p < 0.001).ConclusionWhile the number of applicants increased, the use of ERAS in a new residency program did not improve the overall subjective ratings of residency applicants. Year 1 applicants received higher scores for the written components of their applications and in their potential contributions to class characteristics.

Critical Appraisal of Emergency Medicine Educational Research: The Best Publications of 2010

“…A total of 329 papers satisfied the search inclusion criteria. Forty‐one papers 7–47 survived the exclusion criteria and were scored by each of five reviewers, with a range of scores from 9.25 to 22.75. Five papers that met a priori criteria and had a mean rank of at least seven were considered methodologically superior and are highlighted for review.…”

“…Eight studies focused on workplace issues in the ED 9,18,28,29,32,33,40,43 . Residency selection remained an important topic of research this year, and the six studies addressed issues relating to predicting which applicant will become a successful resident 14,20,31,36,42,45 …”