Good afternoon everyone. My name is Vikas Gupta. I'm an adult child psychiatrist working at Mass General Hospital. I'll be the moderator for your session and with you we have the august presence of one, two, three, four, five training directors in person here to talk about our interesting session applying for psychiatry residency, some tips and tricks from PDs. Before we get started I would like to introduce our chair. Seated on the extreme left is Dr. Eric Williams who will be chairing the session. He's the Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Career Advising at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia. In addition, he works with the Prisma Health Midlands Act team. He earned his medical degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and completed his general residency and child and adolescent fellowship with the Palmetto Health Alliance University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He worked in an academic setting, an inpatient setting, in juvenile justice as well as college student mental health. He's also worked as a traveling psychiatrist prior to his current positions. Dr. Williams wears many hats. He's a member of the ACAP CME committee. He's the member of the APA Minority Fellowship Selection and Scientific Program Committees. He's not only a member of the APA Scientific Program Committee, in fact, he is the chair of the committee that has put this entire APA annual program together. His after-hours job is a group exercise instructor at Move Fitness that gives him the energy to do all this. And I also want to thank Dr. Williams for allowing a special IMG-focused track this year with special invited sessions to be of help to medical students and IMGs in different areas. Without much ado, I'd like to welcome Dr. Williams to get started. Thank you. So we'll go ahead and get started. So just curious, how many are applying for this coming cycle? Okay, you're in the right place. All right, yeah, that's just about everybody. That's wonderful. You have a job to do. So you're going to hear in the next 90 minutes about CVs, personal statements, interviewing, letters of recommendations, tokens, mentoring, all the things that, all the pieces that you need to put together a competitive application for psychiatry. And we have, as Dr. Cooper said, we have five program directors here who are going to tell you exactly what you need to do. So we will start with our first person, and that is going to be on the CV and the resume. And your presenter will be Dr. Rashi Agarwal. She is a vice chair of education and the residency program director and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers NJMS in Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Agarwal's residency was at Bermudez Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, and her fellowship in CL psychiatry was at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She's an active educator in the areas of wellness, empathy, stigma, and addiction disorders in the CL setting. She has dedicated her passion for teaching and advocacy to increasing awareness about physician well-being and has made wellness a core value of the NJMS psychiatry residency program. Here she has rolled out several low investment organizational changes that promote resident well-being. Dr. Agarwal serves as the deputy editor for academic psychiatry. She is also the director of the academic psychiatry training editorial fellowship, which she helped launch in 2020. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and editorials. Dr. Agarwal has served in many leadership roles in national organizations. She has served on the ABPN maintenance of certification pilot program. She has also been a member of APA's ad hoc task force on psychiatrist well-being, where she led two subgroups. Her work led to the development of the survey used to assess psychiatrist burnout by the APA. She currently serves on the APA's Council on Medical Education and Lifelong Learning and is the program chair for ADPERT's annual meeting in 2024. Dr. Agarwal. Thank you. So as you can see, I'm challenged by the height. All right, let's talk about how to write your CV. So when you think about your CV, you're always focused on your content, but I think the format and the way you organize your CV is equally important because just at a glance, when somebody looks at your CV, it's almost like a, you know, a shortcut trick for the training directors to know how organized you are as a resident. So while content is important and we will be talking about the content, keep a very careful editing of your CV format. So the typical length is three to five pages, but if you have a lot that you have done and it's longer, don't worry about it. And if it's not that long, it's okay. It's just whatever you have should be displaced in the best way possible. If you're going to describe something you did, and there are many places where I would advocate that you describe what you did, and I'll show you as we do this, you want to use bullet points instead of complete sentences to describe it, and use action words. So the example of something like, you know, I was one of two people who worked on, in the development of restraint policies, or one of X number of people who did this. Instead of that, you just change it into what you did, assisted in developing restraint policies. Because that means that when, you know, as training directors we get a lot of applications, and what you want us to be able to do is glance at your CV and quickly pick up on your strengths and the kind of things you have done and that you're proud of. Be very, very consistent in your CV format. So whatever you are using, use it consistently. So if your headline, and I've been very careful with my slides this time because I want to sort of show you what I'm saying. So you will see that there will be no spacing differences. Everything is the same font size. And this is one place, by the way, do not be creative. You'll show your creativity in other places. CV is a very, very traditional kind of a format, and you want to use that. Only use fonts that are traditional, like Arial, Times Roman, or Calibri. I would say stick to one of these. Do not do more than that. You can use bold and italics to highlight some of your subsections and sections. And I will also continue to demonstrate as I show you my slides. Check, double check, check again, triple check, keep checking until you get bored. And have somebody else glance at it. Because what happens is that once I have worked on something for some time, your eyes sort of glaze over the mistakes. It's hard to catch your own mistakes. So definitely have a close family member, somebody who's good with the language, to just proofread it once for small grammatical errors. And then lastly, but very important, when you save your CV, remember to save it with the eye of the person who will be receiving the CV. So, you know, a lot of times I've seen, like my residents, they'll send me their letter of recommendation and they'll save it as Agarwal, LOR, right? But the LOR is not Agarwal's LOR, it's my resident's letter of recommendation by me, right? So you want to save it in that format. So the CV, I would say Agarwal Rashi CV, that's how I would save mine, and that's how you should save yours. And if you're doing a letter, again, I would say your last name, your initial. So if I was saving a letter of recommendation, I would save it as Agarwal R. PD LOR, or LOR by Dr. Mohideen, like things like that. So be very careful in your saving. Your CV starts in a very traditional manner. It has to have your contact information right at top and center with your address, phone number, email. It is followed right after that with your education. I'm from India, so I didn't have undergraduate education, but if I didn't put none there, it would be, people might think that I have forgotten. So you always want to put all your education. Those of you who are IMGs might have additional training. So education also includes your internship or residency or any other additional training you might have had that goes in your education category. So that's your start of your CV. And again, you don't have to exactly use the same format as I'm using, but whatever format you use, you be very, very consistent with your spacing and aligning off. Some people put the dates on the right, some put on the left. There is no right or wrong way. But whatever you choose, you choose it the same way. And month and year are things that are usually put. The next section usually in the CV is your clinical experiences. In the clinical experiences, you know, if you're a U.S. medical graduate that's in fourth year, you don't need to put additional clinical experiences. This is part of your medical school training. But if you graduated last year or have had additional clinical experiences, you want to put those. You always put things in the reverse chronological order, though I guess I shouldn't say always. It's usually done that way, but if you do it in a different order, but then keep that same order consistently. Include clinical experiences that are relevant and showcase what you learn from those clinical experiences, right? Because what you're trying to tell us is that you're ready to start your residency. So for an example is psychiatry extern, I used italics to sort of show this. And then I have the date and an example location. And then the bullet points. What did you do as an extern? Why did this add to you? Were you just a virtual observer or did you actually do something? And if you were a virtual observer, what were your roles? So you want to use one or two bullet points, three or four, maximum five I would say. But definitely one or two to say what did you do during that extension. And if you have a number, like you were actually responsible for patients or writing notes or doing something concrete, put it there so that we don't have to ask you. It's right there. I hope I put this sentence again somewhere, but even a smallest phrase on your CV, you should be ready to expand and speak about it in your interview. So when we talk about interview practice, you have to really literally go over your CV phrase by phrase. And every phrase that's on your CV is a fair game for an interviewer to ask you questions about it. So if you don't, if you're not ready for a paragraph worth of saying something about what you did, that means it should not be in your CV. So be very, very true in your CV. After the clinical experiences comes the research experience. The organization and format is the same. Whichever format you use for your clinical experience, you will completely copy that. Again, you know, you'll describe what your role was, clinical research assistant, voluntary clinical research assistant, or voluntary research assistant, whatever that might be. Date, your location, and then what did you do in that research project. Now sometimes people are tempted to add stuff. Do not. If you have done something, whatever minimal thing that might be, put that. You know, I reviewed the literature for the project. I helped assist it in writing, or I did not. I assisted in data collection. Just be very clear on what you did, because again, these are the things that interviewers will ask you. Because as interviewers, we are also looking for how to understand you better. So people will ask you questions. So be very, very honest about what you put in there. The question that sometimes come when you're talking about research and clinical experience, especially if you graduated last year or before, what kind of experiences should you seek, and how much, how many of these you should have? The simple answer to that is there's no set number. It depends on, it's in some ways guessing what do the TDs want, and what do you want? So you want meaning what your passion is, what you're interested in, because that gives you something to talk about in interviews. What do the training directors want? We don't need you to have hundred thousand clinical experiences. We just want to know that when you join our program, you are ready to build, you have foundational skills, and you will build on them in our programs. But the first week, first month of residency, when you are ready for your calls, you will know the basics. You will know how to evaluate patients in different settings. You will know how to write a note in an EMR. Simple things like that. That's all we need to know. Research experiences are not a must, but they build your CV, and some programs will value them more highly, some programs will value them less highly. But it also shows that you are willing to go the extra length that you are adding. So when you're choosing between should you go for another clinical experience or research experience, it really depends on what your CV already has. What are you trying to show to the program directors based on any deficits that you might have had in the past? So it's not like if you have already have five posters or publications, you don't need to showcase that you're capable of doing those. Publications and presentations is the next major category, and they can be divided into four categories. Publications, workshops, post abstracts, or oral presentations. Publications can have further subcategories, but you don't need to do that unless you have a lot under that category. And in that case, I think you probably already know how to do it. So you can just do publications, and you can even sometimes combine post abstracts or workshops, but I prefer to see them separately because in some ways workshops are harder to get in versus post abstracts. So if you have a workshop presentation, you want to highlight that you had a workshop presentation. And oral presentations usually means that it's a local presentation. You were an extern or intern and you did something locally at your program. I have these some examples of how to write out this. So the first one is a publication, the second one is a workshop, and the third one is a poster. So this is a format. It's not the only format, but if you don't, you're not sure how to do this, this is a good format to copy. If you notice, I have my name highlighted here. That's not because I am in love with my name, but in the CV you want to highlight your, you want to not highlight, sorry, you want to bold your name. So it shows where you were in that presentation. That's how you do this. Many of you will have some volunteer experiences or extracurricular activities, honors, and awards, and those are the things that will follow in your CV. Again, list things that are significant and relevant to the profession that you're applying to, psychiatry. It showcases your passion and commitment. Again, be prepared to answer any questions that anybody asks you about this. And if it's not self-evident, if you want to really show that, you know, I volunteered for a suicide hotline, and you really want to say that this was such a significant experience, you learned a lot, you can put a couple of bullet points to show what you did in that, and how significant your contribution was. Honors and awards follow the same principle. You can include the name, the date, the award. If it's not very clear what award it's like, a lot of awards are like Dr. Ben Maura Award. Nobody knows what that means, except that it's something of excellence. You want to then list what you got the award for, so you can do that. So, you know, in CVs there is some space to play, but not to be too creative. There are some optional things you can add in your CV, like interests, activities, or skill sets. It is a part of the ERAS official CV, but do not rely on the ERAS CV only. The formatting of ERAS CV is not as good versus the CV you upload. One can really glance at it in a good way. If you're going to be talking about your hobbies, do not put everything under the sun there. Choose a few significant hobbies that you're very knowledgeable about. Believe it or not, you will run into an interviewer who has the same hobby and is an expert on that, and if you don't know what you're talking about, then it will not reflect well on you, so do that. The last category most people put is professional memberships, like APA or PsychSign or whatever that might be. If you're a member, you can just put the name, but if you are part of a committee or a group in that organization, it's a good thing to showcase that and put that, because that usually means that you've been doing more work. Here are some resources for CV. It's not that difficult to find example CVs, and I put some here where I could see some CVs that were listed on these websites, so you can obviously go and look at these to see some other examples. But if you just even Google residency CVs, you'll find a lot of resources. And that is it for my end. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Agarwal. So we will have a Q&A session at the end of the talk by all the presenters. Unfortunately, Dr. Agarwal has to leave, so we have a quick time for three, four minutes for a quick Q&A, so please come up to the mic if you have a question, and phrase your question briefly in 30 seconds or less. Hi, doctor. Regarding the oral presentations, if you did something with a foundation, for example, like even here at APA, it wasn't officially a presentation, but you still had a conversation in the form of a webinar or something. Does that count, or would that just be like, you know? Anything you have done, it does count, and you should put on the CV. I think the question is, should you put it in the publication presentation section? The abstracts that are part of formal committees, like all our abstracts are considered published abstracts, so that's why we put them there. But for the residency interviews, I would be okay if you put them right there, or you can add another category called miscellaneous presentations. So in my own CV, I have a miscellaneous presentation that includes webinars and virtual forums. But this is an important work, and you should definitely put it in your CV in some case. Okay, thank you. Hello, doctor. Thank you for a really informative presentation. As you said, not everybody says the format. Everybody goes into the details of what should be there. What I was wondering is, what would the limit for the hobbies? If you have extensive interests, generally, let's say, I'm personally interested in PR, marketing, writing, novels. I can go up to five, and I don't want to, like, okay, I'm eager, but I don't want to show as if I'm all over the place. How do I get that golden line? I think three to five is a reasonable number of hobbies. In some ways, why are you listing your hobbies? Think about that, actually. Hobbies is a way to show us that you are a human being, and not just a psychiatry residency applicant, right? The same way as your interviewers are, and it gives some of the interviewers like to start the interviews from that section. They look at the hobbies, they look for something in common, or they just want to ask you questions to see if you're just a superficial kind of a person, or do you go in depth? Because it's sort of, it doesn't really imply that you'll be in depth as a resident, but, you know, we are using indirect measures. So if you put too many things, it's sort of, you, like, everybody has a limited amount of time. So, yes, you might be doing ten things, like, I'm not just a psychiatry resident or an educator, right? I have many identities. You just sort of pick what are the top five for you, and put those. But if you only have three or two, that's fine, you know, there is no, like, people are not judging you on that. They're just looking at the hobby section to see how can we find common ground when we're interviewing you. That's all. Good afternoon, doctor. My name is Lynette Pakru. I have a question for you. I did a couple rotations under a doctor who has a TV show, and he let me be, I guess, one of his people on the show. Where would I put that in my CV? First of all, congratulations. You've had an experience that most people don't have. It's like five seconds, but I'm still there. I don't want you to think I'm the star of this show. There's a star of the show, and I'm just a pretend nurse on this show. So if you think about it, this is such an interesting topic that many interviewers will want to know more about this, right? So you could maybe create a miscellaneous presentations after the presentation section, and you just say, you know, whatever the show's name was, and then you can put a bullet, a five-minute appearance on this. The topic was this. This also tells us you might have a five-second appearance, but you probably did some legwork for the speaker that they invited you on that, right? You did work for that. Yeah, it was for a season and for two shows. Yeah, so you just put that as in a bullet points. So do a miscellaneous presentation session. Under miscellaneous presentation? Yeah. Okay, and if I also helped write and edit for his third book, where do I put that? I did some research for it. But you didn't get the publication credit. I don't have publication. No, he's still in the process of writing and I'm done. You could do a, you know, in the research or after the publication, you can, or in the research experience is where you would put it. Assisted in researching for the draft of this particular book. So that's your research experience, not your publication experience. I wouldn't be able to put the, because I had to sign an NDA, so I wouldn't be able to put the title of the book. Do I just put the third book that's supposed to be coming out? Yeah, or you can just put a research experience and say assisted the author in researching the subject. Okay, the subject. Okay, thank you, doctor. Just know that we, you know, it's not about 100% being right or wrong. You might write something in a different way than I would write or Ben would write. Like, we will all differ. The main thing is that you're not trying to exaggerate what you did and you're actually honestly, but you also are communicating what you did. Those are the two important elements. So, you know, if you did something that's different from our style, that's fine. Okay, but then be consistent. Sorry. Hi, my name is Pichabha. I'm a fourth year medical student at St. George's. And my question is, this might be a little bit broad, like what kind of mistakes do you see, like when medical students trying to write a CV? I think it's the kind of things that I sort of try to address. Like, you know, it's inconsistent. It doesn't clearly say what you did. What was your role in something? Did you, you know, you're saying research experiences, but I don't see any publications. So what exactly did you learn in a research project? So those are the kind of things, like just highlighting. And grammatical errors are a big no-no. And mislabeling things can be a problem. But CVs is less of a, they are no major flop. Don't worry too much also. Okay, thank you so much. So we just have time for one quick question for Dr. Agarwal. It's gonna be quick. Thank you for the presentation. I work as a research coordinator, but I also have publications within my department. So within my experience, would you put this as a work experience or a research experience, or you put in both and just like, put whatever I would do for it? I would pick one. Okay. You can put it as a work if you're doing this for a long time and paid, but in some ways it's better to just put it in research experience. If you're learning about research, just highlight it there. But your publications will be a separate section anyways. But you want to highlight, what all did you do as a coordinator? Because you learn organizational skills, right? Residency is not just about psychiatry content. You'll be surprised. A lot of residents who do not flourish, do not flourish because their organizational skills are not good. They do not respond to their emails in time, things like that. So anybody that has extra work experiences. But again, if you put it in any section, it doesn't matter as long as you put it, but I would recommend research. Okay. And as a, for example, for an observership, if I do have like some hands-on experience, or would you put that as a work experience if I would go weekly for a while or volunteer? You could either do it as, it's better to put it in clinical experience because that's what you're trying to highlight. Okay. Thank you. So any place where you can highlight a clinical or a research experience, you put it there. Okay. Because those are the things you're trying to. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. And I really want to thank my co-presenters for letting me leave early. Our next presenter is Dr. Farouk Mohoyeddin, MD, CGP, FAPA, F-A-G-P-A, so you know he's a real thing, is a psychiatrist and an educator. He is currently the Chair of Psychiatry Training and Director of Psychiatry Residency Training Program at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He is past Chair of National Group Psychotherapy Institute, Washington School of Psychiatry. He is a past President of Washington Psychiatric Society. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine and Faculty Department of Psychiatry at Howard University School of Medicine. His primary interests include medical education and group psychotherapy. He is a member of the Administration and Leadership Committee of the National Think Tank, Group for Advancement of Psychiatry. He is the past President of the Mid-Atlantic Group Psychotherapy Society and is also the Co-Chair of Public Affairs Committee at AGPA. He is in private practice in Alexandria, Virginia. He's presented and published on a wide range of topics in psychiatry. In 2021, he was awarded the National Harold Bernard Award for Outstanding Contributions to Group Therapy Education and Training and was also awarded the Exceptional Leadership Award from the Washington Psychiatric Society in 2021, Dr. Mohoyeddin. Thank you. Thank you for the kind introduction. I was sitting there thinking now to go back and write my CV again. So wonderful introduction and just want to move on to talk a little bit about personal statement. So how important is personal statement? It's usually not the initial section reviewed, usually not part of screening. What does it mean? Every program these days is getting about 2,000, 3,000 applications for psychiatry. Psychiatry, we're very fortunate, we have a lot of interest in psychiatry, thousands of applications come for very few slots. There is no way that if I have a month to review, I can review 3,000 applications or 2,000 applications. So there are going to be screening processes in place. Depending on the program, the programs will use different screening processes. Some will use USMLE scores, some will look at geographical interest, local medical schools, some will look at letters of recommendations, research can be important for some places, signals if an applicant has signaled us, what does the dean letter say. So depending on the program when you're applying, there are different screening methods that are used to cut down the number of applicants from thousands to a few hundred that applications can be reviewed in detail. So when we get to that stage, when the screening is done, so that's the first most important step for you to get to the second step where now we start who are we going to invite for interviews, because even after that hundreds of applications are present. After that, it's personal statement, personal statement, personal statement. Extremely important. Usually for me, I base my decision after the initial screening on personal statement. For myself, that's a preference. This is one place which can make or break your application. And even though it's so important, it gets so scary for people. I know so many medical students who wait till the last minute to submit their applications for residency training because they can't finish the personal statement. They just keep agonizing over it. So it's not something too complicated. It is a very important component, but it's not that complicated. So I'm going to try to break it down a little bit in my presentation today. So not to hold back people. So what is the personal statement? It is your story. It's not a letter of recommendation from someone else. It's not your grades. And how you use it, this piece of your application, personal statement, tells me a lot about who you are and what you will bring to the program. It goes beyond the scores, the objective measures. And since it's entirely your choice how you write this, there is nobody telling you. It's not a dean's letter. It's something that's your choice. So it tells me what you will bring to the, what kind of a resident you will be when you get here. So a lot of things can be gleaned from a well-written personal application. So what does it give us here? You can explain in here any academic challenges, anything that you think a program might be curious about, things like that could be very well explained. So for example, I was thinking when Dr. Agarwal was presenting, I usually ask people for my program to send me a supplemental CV that explains any gap in the CV. And the reason for that is that you graduate from medical school, but for two years you were nowhere, I don't see any clinical work, I don't see any research, I don't see anything. You were doing something wonderful. You were volunteering somewhere or you were traveling the world, which makes you a great applicant. But I don't know what the two years gap is. And one of the other reasons was that once we asked that question, we found out the person was in jail for two years. So we asked that question. It's good to keep that in mind. But you know, it's kind of the thing that you do that if there's any, if you were traveling the world, you know, here's the place to talk about it. Tell us something about whatever the, if I look at your CV, there's something glaring, put it there. You don't have to, but if you think that it is something that's glaring that the program may have questions about, this is the place to put it in. Also to put in how you are different and try to do it without hyperinflation, you know, overinflation or hyperbole. I get so many personal statements, I'm a hard worker. Well, of course you are a hard worker because you went through medical school. I mean, nobody goes through medical school to do this. So I want to help people. I know that. I mean, you're a physician. You want to help people. So again, this is good. I think it's, the message is good. There's nothing wrong with saying that. But how do you say it and how do you bring it up is the important. So one of the things that, you know, you don't go to medical school to make money, you went to business school if you want to make money. So therefore I know you're all dedicated to what you are doing. Give examples. I was able to bring the team together to diagnose this difficult patient, which nobody could get together. And this is how I'm a team player. This is a, give examples. Very important to do something, say something that will let me know how did you do it. How did you do it? I'm a hard worker. While there was this catastrophe and I worked seven days straight during this catastrophe. Now I know you're giving me examples of really building a story in some ways. And it is your story. So moving on from that, what are for me good statements? The good statements are clear. So we have to talk about, you know, what does a clear statement mean? It's not meandering all over the place. It tells a point, make the point to me, whatever you're trying to say. So it has to be clear. I also put in there no more than one page. It's not that you can go a little over one page, you can be a little under. But again, it is, if it's two, three pages, I'm reading hundreds of applications. I'm going to skim through that, but I'm not going to, you know, the more you put in there, your point may get lost in there. One of the things that I understand is when you say it's limited to one page, when somebody asks me that describe yourself in one word, it's very hard. If you give me a paragraph, I can describe myself. But try to be concise. One page is quite a bit of space. Also be aware of your own tendencies. I can give you an example from my own interview. The cultural considerations that we bring as IMGs to this process. So remember, too long ago, decades ago, when I was being interviewed, my first interview somebody says to me, so I have these hundred other applicants, why should I choose you? Now culturally, promoting oneself is considered very bad in my culture. So I said to them, you know, I don't know them, why are you asking me about that? I can't say how am I better than them, I can tell you what I'm doing, but I can't tell you how am I better than them. Needless to say, I didn't rank that program, but still, it's something to keep in mind. Be prepared to go across, you know, understand the local culture and understand that you are here to sell yourself as well. So don't be too modest. Other things that are included in there. Telling the story. Story is very important. So I just want to make sure I keep an eye on time. You let me know when... Dr. Mohideen, we have one or two more minutes. Oh my gosh. So I will go ahead and speed up the process. So say what sets you apart. We talked about giving examples and no more than one page. So you know, unhelpful personal statements. So one thing that I would say is, do you think that my presentation, usually my presentations are not this colorful, but I wanted to make it like this. Why? Does it grab your attention? Does it look different from a bland PowerPoint that is not there? You have to set your personal statement apart. It can't be too long. It can't be too short. It can't be too generic and platitudes in there. You know, you put me in wonderful quotes in there, et cetera, stuff like that, but it doesn't tell me who you are. Why are you telling me this quote? Things are not about you. One interesting thing that I find in some statements, blaming others for your problems. Oh, I got delayed from medical school because my medical school was not providing me this and this and this. Take ownership as well. Yeah, it could be true, but it's also taking ownership as well. Copied, edited, we can generally see where the copyediting ends and where your statements start. So copying, editing in the statements, chat GPT, I will not go into that, I have only two minutes, but something to keep in mind that these things are coming and we're all aware of it as program directors and we're looking at these things. So starting out with an opening to grab attention. How do you go do opening that will grab people's attention? I give this example, one person's statements I started out with. If you don't talk to me right now, I will kill myself, said the 13 year old. This is a little dramatic, but to understand that I'm going to read this statement, I'm going to read this very well. So there's an opening statement, you grab, it's your opportunity to grab the attention. Then you go on to the rest of the statement, you connect the dots. This was a patient I saw in the ER, this is what the patient's impact on me was, this is why I want to go into psychiatry, so you connect the dots later for me. And then bring in maybe your personal life, how does your personal life got impacted by seeing a child and this was your personal reactions, but then make it always connect to the professional. That's why I want to be a child psychiatrist. So personal versus professional, your hopes, and the concluding paragraph that summarizes all of this. You can elaborate on the theme without overdoing it. Somebody has a theme, they were an athlete all their life and they went to medical school, so they can use metaphors about how being an athlete helped them with their medical school career. But don't overdo it, everything is not about you being an athlete, I need to know what kind of a physician you will be as well. You can include in here your scholarly activity research, if that's a big part of your life, you will include that. Why psychiatry? Why my program? And personalize it if possible, if you want, you can personalize personal statements to each program and you can do that, if you are applying to four or five programs, you can personalize those to spend that time on it. And for the international medical graduates, many international medical graduates here are actually born and raised in the United States, but many are not. So difference between native and non-native speakers, have somebody else read your personal statement. I recommend that highly. Dr. Agarwal talked about it, how there should not be grammar and punctuation mistakes in there. If you are not, it doesn't have to be the most literary thesis that you can ever write, but it has to be without grammatical errors, without punctuation mistakes, because it turns me off, it shows me that you're careless, you're not paying attention to. Read it a couple of times and have somebody else read it. But if somebody else reads, if you have a mentor, please don't let them change the content. You can comment on the grammar and stuff, but it still has to be your story. This magnanimous thing that we do, how many times do you use that? If you are an English major and you came in and you use those words in your medical records, great, I love wonderful writers, but if it's not your words, please don't use them. And you can always ask your mentors to help with clarity. Does this flow well? Is the point that we made, is the progression from this? You can ask people to let them know how you see it. I just want to at the end put a couple of resources here. They're examples on these websites of good personal statements versus personal statements that needed a lot of work. So two minutes over, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next presenter is Dr. Vineeth John, MD, MBA. Dr. John is Professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Luis A. Feliz MD Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He also serves as Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Section and was appointed one of the Directors of Clinical Learning Environment at the Medical School in 2019. Dr. John is currently the Chair of the Academy of Masters Educators at McGovern Medical School. In May 2022, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Academic Teaching at Utrecht University, Netherlands. Yeah, I did that right? Okay. Dr. John was one of the featured speakers for TEDx Houston 2012, where he spoke on dysfunctional styles of organizational leadership. In 2023, he was inducted into the UT Shine Academy and is currently a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas Systems Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Dr. John. Thank you, Dr. Williams. I also want to thank my amazing panel who continues to inspire me. In 2018, Dr. Gupta and I did this at an 8 o'clock session in New York and we had amazing participants. I see them now. They're all in residencies. They're already finished. So you are going to get into residency and you're going to be prepared because of this amazing generosity of our PDs here. I put this here to sort of suggest that interview process is important. I don't think the percentages matter. I just wanted you to realize it's important because otherwise, why would we have all these amazing presenters talk about how to put in a good application? Quite often, people forget or take interview very casually and that's why I put the percentage here at 70%. When you move into the interview, you also have to realize what are people looking for? Quite often, when you looked at what Dr. Agarwal said and Dr. Moinuddin said, they all talked about the interview process as a kind of byproduct of either a good CV or a good personal statement. People are looking for your commitment, your motivation or engagement. Through the way we conduct the interview, people are also going to be able to look at your awareness of the specialty, your communication skills, emotional intelligence, your versatility on the intellectual way, curiosity, your scholarship in psychiatry, and also red flags in application. And at every single moment when they're talking to you, they're also sort of processing this concept, which is very elusive, very ephemeral, very intuitive thing called the fit. Could they see you as a future member of the team? I'll focus on two of the themes, which is emotional intelligence and curiosity. Emotional intelligence is this combination of self-awareness, self-reputation, social awareness, and ability to manage relationship. Quite often, medical schools don't do a great job in even propagating emotional intelligence, but as any of these program directors could tell you, it's those trainees with low emotional intelligence a problem for them because most of us are able to reach that level of intellectual quotient but the emotional intelligence could trip us. During the interviews your emotional intelligence is fully required because quite a lot of things will happen which you don't anticipate and which could make you anxious. There could be change in the faculty roster which will increase your anxiety because you didn't read up about that particular faculty. Utilizing humor is a great way to demonstrate emotional intelligence. As I said being comfortable with uncertain situations, navigating the unexpected situations, in some way communicating that you are motivated to perform, motivated to achieve is very important. At any point don't take that interview meeting as a casual encounter but have this need to connect with someone in some common areas. A lot of your attendings are clinical attendings are moving to the interview from a very difficult clinical situation and maybe there may be a few minutes delay and being aware of that and acknowledging those challenges are also important to demonstrate your emotional intelligence. The other theme is curiosity which we all have that's where you're all here months ahead of the interview schedule. These impulses seek new information, experience new possibilities, that is curiosity. Curiosity is definitely beneficial. It promotes this development of all of us being perceptive and compassionate and wise healthcare providers. Being curious about our patients, our colleagues, creates a respectful relationship and it also makes us up-to-date as well. During the interview process if curiosity pushes you into being more inquisitive and to learn more about the program and if you are someone who's very interested in arts and culture and science let it bring forth during the interview process and also to learn more about the lives of faculty, residents, and the staff. Quite often the interviews are between 20 and 30 minutes and you may be able to wrap everything up in about 15 to 20 minutes and they'll ask you do you have any more questions and maybe the kind of questions you ask will demonstrate your interest in the program. Just to sort of make this interview process a little bit more structured I created this 4P model. There's nothing Nobel Prize winning in this one. You all do this but I just wanted to sort of point out certain aspects to it. The first thing is preparation which is what you've been in a way inspired today by Dr. Agarwal and Dr. Moinuddin and from onwards from Dr. Borja and Dr. Curry but you have to sort of think about your content expertise, interesting cases you could discuss, awareness of program information. If there are red flags in application are you able to respond to it? Being ready for traditional behavioral and situational questions we'll get to it in a second. There's a lot of interest now in setting up your virtual landscape, what kind of technology, what kind of lamp do you use, how do you organize your space around where you're going to take the interviews, how do you minimize distractions, how do you navigate your interview day and also preparing for your post-interview status as well. Some of these themes are important in the new kind of psychiatric information. All your current PDs would say this is the new kind of directives we are gearing ourselves to which has importance for trauma-informed care, neuroscience, relevance of psychotherapy, social determinants of health, new interventional psychiatry themes like TMS, DBS, TDCS, VNS, pharmacotherapeutic modalities which are now exploring which I'm so glad you're all here because that's been discussed at this part of APA, ketamine and psychedelics and then with chat GVD, digital mental health, new apps, pharmacogenomics, all these themes are important. I want you to sort of read more about them. Some of the traditional questions you should be prepared for is about ourselves, our interest in psychiatry and that part of that you could do by writing a personal statement, your future projection of what you see in 10 years, what are the kind of qualities looking for in a training program and then questions about research. Sometimes these are so generic you might think but the way you answer every single day when Dr. Curry and Dr. Bora and Dr. Moinuddin and Dr. Agarwal talk to the applicants, they are talking to 12 applicants on the same day. You have time now for the next few months to prepare your answer so it could be so thoughtful and thorough. Sometimes you may be asked behavioral questions like tell us about a time you worked under pressure or a situation you handled well or even poorly. You have to know that you are great but you do have points of weakness and it's okay to talk about it. How do you talk about a mistake? This is more of a start technique. They ask you for a situation and talk about the task involved and what actions you took and so that's very nice because it sort of gives you the kind of describing the situation first and and then explicitly talking about the task and action and results that sort of help you organize your thinking as well. I'll come to the next part which is practice and that is quite a difficult thing for most of us to think about. We sort of assume that we are extraordinarily gifted in the interview process and we don't have to practice at all. So I encourage all of you to think about enlarging the contents, enhancing your communication skills and those simple questions we talked about but looking for your answers, your responses. You can enhance the quality of your practice by the self typing and seeing how you navigate those questions, asking a peer or a mentor to do these mock interviews and then the painful process of reviewing what we do and where we slipped up during this mock interviews. You should realize that when you discuss a case you might see yourself as a medical student, fourth year medical student but the attending who was evaluating you is always dealing with PGY-2s, PGY-3s and 4s so if you're able to sort of using sophisticated terminology which you always pick up in the clinical scenarios that will be helpful as well. Creating micro lectures on multiple topics that's very important and that's what this whole APA is all about. All these wonderful topics you can really able to speak about for five minutes. I put that in presence is something so another ephemeral theme but this is about Priyanka Chopra when she was auditioning for the role in Quantico. Joshua Safran says when she walked in the room it was like molecule shifted in that way that superstars have. I was very confused. I didn't know who she was but we all sat up straighter. We may all may not compete with Priyanka Chopra's presence but I think there's this theme that sometimes when we are even in a virtual interviews we can make a difference and basically I just want to say that when we feel present our speech our facial expressions our postures and movements align they synchronize and focus. As Dr. Moini and Dr. Agarwal said you have opportunities in CV and in your personal statement to own and tell your stories but interview you have to actually vocalize and tell it and you have to do it in an authentic way worrying less on the impressions make on the others but really owning our authenticity and then when you get too anxious and too self-absorbed then it has a very difficult time creating a real connection with the interviewer and somehow we have to learn the art of conveying our conviction and passion and confidence without being arrogant. The whole theme in presence is your body language makes a difference because it shapes your mind and mind shapes our behavior and behavior shapes the outcome in terms of whatever interaction we having so being focused on the present. The final theme in this is performance you have to really take your interview as a performance you cannot just walk into an interview and think that you'll ace it you have to sort of anticipate the questions visualize it think through it and that way you're able to manage your energy and attention and and sometimes people over interview like they are like interviewing in the morning interviewing in the afternoon please don't do that I love adequate time for rest and sleep and have this ability to connect and communicate with people in the last hour of conversation. The final theme is what should you be looking for again the whole concept fit is not just for the programs for you do you feel comfortable with this group of people do they make me feel alive with me do they inspire me do some of the clinical programs exactly anchor with what I'm trying to do what about the residents I meet on the resident hour do they have good morale how engage with the faculty what's the kind of connection between service and education look of accomplishments and access is also other important. In the interview post interview process continue to be interested and continue to celebrate your authenticity and at all times practice deep empathy. Dr. John we have another one minute that's it thank you all the best. Thank You Dr. John our next presenter is Dr. Ben Borja MD he is the program director for the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences Department of Psychiatry residency training program. He previously served as the first medical director of crisis services at the Shepard Pratt Health System for the past decade and was instrumental in its development. At Shepard Pratt he also served as the associate program director of the University of Maryland Shepard Pratt residency and director of residency in medical student education. Dr. Borja has helped successfully launch a new psychiatry residency at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. He was also instrumental in creating psychiatric emergency services at the University of Maryland and served as its medical director. He is a graduate of the charter class of the University of Maryland Shepard Pratt Psychiatry residency program where he served as chief resident. Dr. Borja served as a senior board examiner for the ABPN from 2002 to 2015. His academic career has primarily focused on psychiatry residency and medical student education. His major areas of clinical expertise or scholarship up in scholarship are telepsychiatry and emergency psychiatry and crisis intervention. He is certified in ECT and in EMDR for the treatment of PTSD. Thanks Eric. Thanks for having me here and it's a pleasure to be with Farouk, Jason and John. So a quick question how many, I know Eric asked, but let's get another temperature of the room. How many applying for a residency? How many would like to do it again? How many IMGs in the program or here? So the theme that I think you will be hearing is do what it takes and get it the first time and I know all of you will. So we will get through this. I got a couple of topics here and I'll stay on track here. So the first one is tips on letters or recommendations. So what are these letters or recommendations? They are a critical component of the residency application and the purpose of these letters is to demonstrate that you have both the professional and personal qualities to succeed as a resident and later on as a practicing physician. Now it is quite easy to procrastinate. So, oh thank you. Yes, thank you. And common reasons will be, for example, I don't know anyone well enough to ask for a letter or I hate asking for recommendation letters. I'll wait until September and before you know it, it's September 14, the day before. So allow at least a month from the time you request a letter until it must be delivered and bear in mind that the faculty are often very busy and they could be out of town, they could have many, and as you can see all these great educators, they teach and educate many medical students. One thing to note is that program directors and I have at least 100 residency programs were surveyed to determine the most important predictors of performance for IMGs and the PDs were asked to rate the importance of at least 22 selection criteria and you've heard a majority here. Rated lowest were letters of recommendation of the 22 selection criteria. Rated lowest were from a non-US country. So only 7% of the program directors agreed to the statement that such letters were useful. In other words, 93% of the program directors agreed that such letters from a US faculty would be helpful to them. When asking for a letter, it's always good to be nice and be polite. So I've been asked what's the best timing for asking letter recommendation and I'll ask a quick show of hands. If you're doing a rotation or if you're doing an observership, do you ask before, middle, or after? How many say before or at the start of the recommendation? How many say middle? How many say after? So I'm sure my colleagues have different opinions and again we would love to write something. At the end, it could be a dilemma if we are treating or not treating, we are educating a lot of medical students and what you don't want to do is it's been two months and ask for that letter recommendation. Probably, and you may agree with me, middle or early, it's good to let them know I would like to go into psychiatry. I'm very interested. Now I like also what Farouk said. Culturally, I'm shy and basically I'm a shy person. You may not know me. On the weekends, I just like to read a book and stay at home. So practice how you ask for it but the timing is very important. Remember that you're asking for a favor. So one that takes time and effort from the faculty member. So don't take the request lightly. Be sensitive, be polite, cordial and be formal and asking for a letter recommendation in person allows you another advantage. It's just a piece of advice. You can gauge the writer's letter of interest in writing the letter. If you have any doubts at all about the letter writer, you must meet face to face. I know this is a social media world but in the good old days, we didn't have this. When I was doing my applications, I had my typewriter 26 years ago. I still have it. We did everything and we were forced to talk to people. If there's any hesitancy, indifference or reluctance in the letter or in the writer's part, it will be more apparent to you in person than in Zoom or whatever over the phone. And should this occur, then you could thank the letter writer and move on and get another letter writer. Things not to ask or where to ask for letter recommendation. And I'm sure the PDs will tell you. Don't ask for it in a hallway. We could be doing something and we might be busy. Passing a note under the door. Leaving a note in the mailbox. Asking him or her by phone. Again, this is your letter of recommendation. This is your work. You should ask and have the courage to do so. An email. I know we're very busy. I would follow that up and ask a time that I could meet. That's why during the rotation, that's when you have them. Take advantage. Approaching them at a busy time. Dr. Referral, do you have two minutes? And he's seeing patients in between. Of course he has two minutes. But I think it would be good that we set a time. And making, again, your request last minute. Procrastination is our worst enemy. If you do this, you will optimize your chances for a solid letter of recommendation. So just a couple of pieces of advice here. There is a right way and there is a wrong way. I wouldn't say wrong in a harsh way. But many students have approached us for a letter and they would ask, could you write a letter of recommendation for me? Now, we would never say no. But anyone can write a letter. But how about asking a question where, Dr. Borja, do you feel you know me enough and you've worked well enough for me to write me a strong letter of recommendation? By phrasing it in this way, the letter can politely, the letter writer, again, can opt out. And if she or he doesn't feel comfortable writing you a letter, don't despair. I would say that a negative or lukewarm letter writer can sync your application. We read them. If we know them, we'll call them. Even if we don't know them, we'll call them. And count yourself lucky to avoid that fate. And even if a writer says that he will support your application with a letter, gauge that level of commitment. If they seem hesitant or ambivalent, again, as I mentioned, thank them. So your work does not end with requesting the letter. You must make sure that the letter is sent. And sent by the deadline. So when making your initial request, be clear about the deadline. And the deadline for the receipt of the recommendation letters. If you ask for it, you have to follow up. To make sure that the letters are sent before the deadline, you can consider a few things. You can stop by the office of the faculty member and you can give a thank you. It could be a note. It could be a card. And it serves as a reminder. And you could say in that thank you, the deadline for the letter. Listen, I hate agonizing when you don't know the unknown, right? So it's okay to ask. Because you do have a deadline. And you could send an email about 10 to 14 days before the deadline saying, I'm just following up with you on the letter recommendation you so kindly agreed to write for me. I wanted to see if I could provide you with any other information. Or if you have questions for me. Of course, you got to call the Students Affairs office. You got to make sure it's in ERAS. So never assume that your letters have been sent. You've got to verify. So as you progress through your residency, stay in touch with letter writers. We would like to see where you go. Because you may need another letter. And Dr. Mohide and I were just talking. You will become successful practicing physicians. You will go into another position in life. You will go up the trajectory. And you still need letter writers. So it doesn't involve a lot of effort to do so. A short email or postcard with a comment or two about your progress will be perfect. We'd love to hear. I've seen some former residents in the corridors today in the APA. I apologize if I don't remember them. I didn't wear my glasses. But they will come up to you. And that's a fulfilling feeling that we have. Some of us have even worked for former residents. So we might be working for you someday. And your letter writers are showing desire to help you. And the time may come when his or her assistance will be needed again. So just to summarize three things when you talk about letters of recommendation. Number one, be nice. Be polite. There's nothing wrong with being nice. Number two, get them early. Do not procrastinate. Get them early. And always say thank you. It never hurts. This is my email and my cell. The other thing will be to signal or not to signal practicing practical tips. Is everybody familiar with what a token or a signal is? It started in psychiatry last year. So what is this process? It's a process that was started last year. Other programs had it or other specialties. But basically it's a process by which applicants are able to formally indicate specific interest to a program. I'm sure you've heard of this. As Dr. Hoyden told you, we get thousands of applications. So because each applicant will get a certain number of signals, they're also called tokens. And this has some or variable credibility to different programs. Signaling can be useful when there are applicants for a given position and it is difficult to differentiate between candidates. The signal provides additional data point about a given applicant's interest in a particular program. So last year each applicant in psychiatry had five tokens or five signals. And while this may change in the future, any given year each applicant will get the same number of signals. So the signals are supposed to work in two directions. Primarily it is a tool that the applicants use to break through the crowded application pools and then they can signal their interest in particular programs. Secondly it helps us ease their application process and we will then find who has a particular interest in the program. And that is a point that I wanted to make. The perceived interest in a program has become an increasing priority for residency directors. I believe this year it's going to be virtual again so you can imagine it's helped you. You don't have to spend that much to travel but it also has opened up a gateway for many applications. So it helps us to decide who to select for an interview. Previously there were very few formal ways for applicants to express their interest in a program. They could either send an email, they could send a handwritten letter, or any other way that they could write to the program director. So signaling lightens the urgency of these options, although they do remain valid and helpful options for supplementing an application, especially for IMGs. Applications to residency programs reach record numbers and programs directors are left to sort through thousands of applications. So offering signal gives applicants a way to express their interest in particular residency programs directly on their applications. It also helps again the residency directors ensure that they are finding qualified applicants eager to come to the program. For you it has a lot of benefits. As discussed it's the ability to express your interest in the residency program and that way you can stand out among the applications and it also omits some of the redundancy of old ways of indicating interest. It also protects your anonymity so only programs that applicants choose to preference signal will be aware that applicant has chosen to utilize that option. Even then a program will not be able to see what other programs an applicant has signaled. This allows applicants to pursue other residency programs without those programs knowing if the applicant used the signaling. Let's talk about strategy. Use your signals to the programs you are generally interested. So if again you have five this year make sure that you've done your due diligence as to which are the reach programs, the safety programs, programs that you either by geography or there's a particular interest in that program or IMG friendly programs those are the ones you want to keep in mind. Don't signal programs you are rotating in unless they explicitly tell you that you need to. Signals are best used on programs where you might get an interview but are not definitely getting one so again don't waste them on programs that are highly likely to interview you anyway. And I put this twice because there's a real potential to over game the system so don't lose sight of this goal to go somewhere you want. And even following these rules you can still up with still come up with very different strategies for how to use your signals. Your training on career goals, a self-assessment of your competitiveness as an applicant aided by a mentor which Dr. Kerr will be talking about next and your risk tolerance should all factor into your personal strategy. Bottom line there's really no winning strategy for using signals and if I could summarize three things. Use all your signals, be realistic, be realistic and of course choose the program you want. Good luck. And last but not least we have Dr. Jason Curry. Dr. Curry, DO, since 2014 has held executive positions as faculty at the University of Arizona Tucson College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry in leading, developing, innovating, supporting and directing postgraduate educational programs and mentorship. Dr. Curry is presently the residency program director for adult psychiatry and the vice chair for education in the department. Dr. Curry is a fellow of the APA, a member of the executive council of the Arizona Psychiatric Society, an Arizona representative to the APA assembly and appointed to the board of trustees for APA's political action committee. Dr. Curry. Thank you very much Dr. Williams. As you have likely understood, especially better exemplified by my co-presenters, our introductions can be quite long and that's for a couple of reasons. The first being that my co-presenters are very accomplished persons who do a lot in the field of mental health and wellness. And likely the second reason being that there is just so much work to do when it comes to psychiatry and medicine in general. So we really appreciate you all being here today to help lighten the load for us. We're going to be talking about mentorship here and just as a side note, given that I've seen very many phones go up to take photos of things, there are probably only two Instagramable moments in my slide deck here. So I'll give you an indication when those are just so you're aware. When it comes to mentorship in general, it is a relationship. It is something that allows for the trust of your interaction with another individual to really dictate the outcome of that relationship. It's not just an ask for help. So as you're considering the use of mentorship towards your application in psychiatry or your progression in medicine, really do consider the nature of that relationship because it can serve many roles. It can partly be to get advice or instruction or in coaching to work on skills or to even further as the trust or the nature of the relationship furthers to get sponsorship and role modeling and even advocacy for you as an applicant to our residency programs. I say preferentially our five residency programs first and then apply elsewhere as well. Apply to as many places as you'd like. So that relationship, quick consideration is are we anticipating that relationship to be transactional versus transformational? And realistically the best mentorships are transformational in nature. Transactional being like what is the individual benefit that somebody can extract from this? They tend to be short-term exchanges or relationships. Like if somebody's selling coconuts and somebody's selling watermelons, well how many coconuts can the watermelon farmer trade for their watermelons, right? It's all about maximizing personal benefit. Whereas transformational relationships are about maximizing the mutual benefit. Not only how does the individual grow like that coconut farmer or the watermelon farmer, but how do they both grow together? And this is really the place to consider too as you're looking for mentorship in your journey. I'm going to say the next part and I'd like us all to observe the program directors at the front of the room and see if what I'm saying is internally valid. Mentorship is absolutely vital in psychiatry residency. Do you see shaking hands? Did they say yes? Okay, good. I wanted to make sure. So your use of mentorship as you're applying for residency is a really great indication for the programs about how successful you're likely to be inside of residency. So consider that asking for help when it comes to mentorship is not just an ask to improve your ability to get things like interviews or to match for a program, but it's a way of demonstrating how likely successful you will be inside the culture of a residency. I will quickly go through these parts. They're a little bit more data-based when it comes to mentorship itself, but mentorship affects a lot in terms of outcomes in one's career, what type of specialty we're likely to go into, whether or not we participate in research, whether or not we experience burnout. All of these things are improved in terms of outcome when we participate in mentorship. One of the difficulties there or challenges is that not many of our medical students receive mentorship. Only about 50% of medical students receive mentorship or what would be a traditional mentorship type of relationship. That number, of course, goes up during residency because residencies are so highly reliant on the mentorship relationship, but then drops drastically when it comes to post-residency. And when it comes to persons who have mentorship, we know that that 50% is not equal across all medical students. Only about 20% of women receive mentorship inside of medical school or in their application towards residency, and that number also decreases after residency. When we look at the traditional academic institutions that minoritized and underrepresented persons who are in academic faculty, which is an unfortunately sad number, only about 7% of persons who are in the MUR category and are on faculty at academic centers are much less likely additionally to receive mentorship. So mentorship is important not just in improving the culture of medicine, but it is important in terms of improving the diversity, equity, and inclusion of medicine. So different things to consider as you're looking for mentorship is really be thoughtful about your application. So many of those ideas were well demonstrated in the prior speakers, but consider where is it that you're really asking for assistance or consideration, and that might differ based on, say, how many attempts someone's potentially had at trying to apply for residency, because then you might be looking at a deeper relationship or deeper mentorship relationship to really go comprehensively into your candidacy towards a residency, or if there are notable challenges in terms of your application that you experienced academically, then it would be useful to have a mentor who can help you speak to those challenges, and that's the place where I'm particularly glad that we had this portion of the talk right here at the end, because it really highlights all of the important areas of the application that we talked to previously, because it is our mentors who can also help increase the understanding of your application. We know that for IMGs, or international medical schools, that at times the notations or the documentation doesn't translate the same to, say, the American schools, where in something like the Dean's Letter or the MSPE, in many of our American-based schools that you'll see all of their students described as excellent and outstanding, whereas for some of our international schools, the equivalent to excellent and outstanding is satisfactory, which doesn't always translate to persons who are not as familiar with international schools, and this is a really great place where some of our mentors can be advocates, so as you're asking for letters of recommendation, really do consider coaching your letter of recommendation writers about how they can help people understand the content of your application, how they can understand what your schooling experience was like, or the challenges that you faced and how you overcame those. It's a really great opportunity to re-highlight the places where you've really been successful. So, just one thing that I will go to. Here are your Instagramable moments. If you're not aware of this resource, it really is an excellent one. This is from the American Medical Association that has toolkits for medical students, and particularly a whole set of toolkits for international medical graduates. They have things like toolkits on advocacy, toolkits on communication, toolkits on visas, so that you can be really well certain about the information about what it would be like to train or how to obtain a visa, and at times even how to explain that to a program that might not be accustomed to working with IMGs. There is also in these set of toolkits a toolkit on mentoring, so that would be a good thing to look at as well. So, this is Instagramable moment number one. Instagramable moment number two. If you are not familiar with this particular resource, it is a roadmap to psychiatric residency. This is an entire, essentially a book that's published as a PDF on the psychiatry.org website. It goes through things like how to arrange your medical school training, what are extra experiences that would be good to do, how do you arrange your fourth year, how do you ask for letters of recognition, how do you get a job, how do you get a job, how do you ask for letters of recommendation and apply. So, that's a very helpful resource, and just a nod to Dr. Williams in terms of I understand I likely have one minute left. Thank you, Dr. Gupta. A nod to Dr. Williams and others who have arranged our series this year, our annual meeting, that they even have on the website a resource for IMGs in terms of what would be good talks to attend or places to connect with other people. Here's the last consideration, and this was previously brought up, I believe, by Dr. Benit to take questions seriously, even though they may seem like the questions that everybody gets asked, but there are also questions that program directors all get asked, and this is a very common one when it comes to the interview. What makes a successful resident in your program? I hear this maybe 10 times a day when we do interviews, so I'm very well-versed in answering this question. I'd like you to consider for yourself how this question is different from the following question. If a year from now I was working hard to be a successful PGY1 in your resident program, what qualities would I be demonstrating and how would I be helping others around me? It's the same question. It is contextualized very differently. This one says, how can I be a good mentee and mentor to others? Also kind of sneaky is that you are asking the person to think about you in this positive light. That might be a little bit manipulative, but not quite. It's more so suggestive. You're suggesting to somebody to imagine you well. We'll move on, I believe, to the question and answer portion. Thank you to all the training directors for the excellent presentations. We're going to move on to a Q&A. We have about nine minutes left, so please come and speak in the mic and briefly state your questions in 30 seconds or less. Hi, my name is Sally. Thank you for the presentation. I want to ask, how can we overcome the difficulty of appropriately presenting ourselves during a virtual interview? Because, like, no, I contact nothing, so how can we perform good? Perform good. I mean, anyone can do this. I just want to highlight something that Dr. John had shared earlier, which was, for these interviews, record yourself. Most of the interviews happen via Zoom or some type of video platform. You should record yourself in the setting that you're going to be in and understand, well, what does it look like when I'm looking at this area of the camera to see if I'm initiating eye contact? How is my space arranged around me such that it's warm and inviting, and also I'm the central person who is taking attention? So this is a really great opportunity, I think a really great point, because it can be, at times, a little bit more difficult in that virtual setting. Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. All of it was helpful. One question that I have personally for me, and I guess I can speak for a lot of people, the big challenge that I have with all of my application is the fine line between being humble and being arrogant. So for me, I've always erred on the side of, like, caution, but a lot of people, like my mentors, have said it's too cautious. So I guess what's the rule of thumb or the feeling that we should use when we're doing, like, our personal statement, our letters of recommendation, or any of those things? How do we prevent ourself from coming off arrogant? Thank you. So there are many ways of doing that. Again, it's by the matter of striking the balance. So one thing that I was talking about personal statement, I said, give examples. You're not saying, oh, I went in and cured this patient who nobody else could cure, but you say I played a role in getting the team together so that we could have a discussion. So there's a balance in there, not overstating your role, but also not understating, and that's one of the challenges. So it has to be finessed in that way. And the other thing, I want to just get back to a little bit to the earlier question about the virtual interviews. I've had interviews this year, and sometimes, you know, you can't control if there is a drilling going on right next to your home. So don't get too anxious about that. You can't control the word, and we just know that, and everybody knows that. So if that's the case, you know, say there's drilling going on next to the window, but that's okay. We can still talk. Just want to quickly add, yeah, so practice. And one thing in Zoom, and you may want to practice really good, is avoid those awkward silences, because that's, you're staring, and if that happens, smile. That's what you're doing. Don't stare back. It's not a staring match. Yeah. If someone is talking, then I talk. I do not live to have to do the content. It's very personal. It's very personal, so I can talk. But you see, that is the question. The big point with that is do not look at the boxes. Practice beforehand looking at the way where you look at the camera. So everybody in the box thinks that you're looking at them because you're looking at the camera. Yeah. Just to quickly add, if you have that, we're looking for confidence. And I like what my colleagues have said. The theme there is to practice, get feedback, get a great mentor. I have old, young mentors. Some of my former residents were mentors. Farouk here, I always call him. I have a question. And if you get that feedback, you will see how you present to other people. And like what you're doing now, you're smiling. That's your best asset. Thank you. That's great. Is it my turn? OK. So I'll be couples matching. My partner, he's trying to match into general surgery. I'm trying to match into psychiatry. And that's obviously terrifying. But I wanted to know what advice you all had for us. So do you recommend that I write about this in my personal statement? Do I wait until we're at interviews? I mean, if I'm on an away rotation, of course, I would mention it in person. But I won't have the opportunity to explore as many programs as my heart would like to. So what advice do you have for people who might be couples matching? And how to go about articulating that throughout the application process? I think my colleagues are better answers, but I'll start the process. It's a tricky thing. Number one, your application actually says you're couples matching, because that's a new U.S. application. Second, we do get a lot of email messages from other program directors who are interested in applicants. Let's say your partner really went in surgery and made the same comment. Then they'll reach out to us seeking our interest in you as well. The third part is it's OK to sort of say, as you wrap up an interview, that you're very excited, and then you are couples matching. And post-interview communication, you could stress that. The challenge happens before you get an interview, or one of you gets an interview and the other person doesn't. It's still OK to sort of suggest that, as a couple, you're really interested in the city. And it would be great, because one of you has got an interview application. It's about going through that narrow line between advocating versus coming on as entitled. So it's that thin line, and that has to be dealt with delicately. Thank you. We only have time for two or three more questions. Thank you for the wonderful presentation. My name is Mujib Salao. My question will be on letter of recommendation. I just want to know what your views are concerning getting a letter of recommendation from a psychiatrist, or do you get some from internal medicine or any other aspect of the field? Thank you. Go ahead. They have a lot of great opinions. And correct me, my colleagues, the minimum is three. You can have four. They recommend at least one psychiatrist. But they may agree the more the merrier. I think that the specialty is very important. So if you don't have any from psychiatry, then that's a little bit concerning. If you have one, and there's somebody else who knows you much better, that's fine. That's fine. So it's the one from the specialty is important. Shall I? OK. So recently I read the article that a lot of personal statements, essays, are about trauma. What do you think about that? Because they are trying to get rid of these trauma essays. But sometimes trauma shows you how you handle the stress, dot, dot, dot. But honestly, sometimes it's also, I'm not your therapist. Why are you writing that to me? So it's a fine line. How do we handle that? So you want to make sure that we talked about the balance between the personal and the professional. And how does this trauma? So I experienced, I lived through a war. And it made me interested in working with the trauma. And this is why I'm interested in the topic of PTSD. My research is all there. So there has to be a balance between over-disclosure, because sometimes that can be a problem in a personal statement as well. So balancing that out to where it ties into your professional interest and how it will make you a better psychiatrist. That's the emphasis. How does this make me a better psychiatrist? Do you like the external perspective or do you prefer the internal? It has to be you. Not everybody has to write about trauma. Whatever you want to show. So that's the thing. Whatever you want to show about yourself. It has to be individualized. I'd like to highlight that what you wish to share. That element of authenticity is very important when it comes to the personal statement. If the reality is that you professionally disclose something in a personal statement that you feel comfortable with, that you think represents your authentic self, and somebody judges that poorly, it's probably best not to be in that program. So I wouldn't take too much consideration into, well, what am I not allowed to say? Especially if it's something that you believe is authentically important for others to understand about you. Hi. I just have one question regarding personal statements. As you mentioned, if there's any gaps, you might want to explain it in there. But I know for me and probably a lot of us here, that COVID gap, especially being IMGs or traveler restrictions, that gap occurred not because of us, but because of everything else happening. So is it necessary to explain this? Or should we just leave it because it's understood? What's your thought on that? Since I mentioned that, so it's not necessary to explain this. But I think that if there's a long gap, you might expect a question about that during the interview. There's a gap. And we understand it's COVID, but we want to know how COVID impacted you. Did it help your education? Did you hinder your education? What happened? So it is important to talk about major gaps. But you might get a question about that. You don't have to include that in your personal statement. It's the red flags that come up that need to be addressed. It's the red flags that come up that need to be, sometimes can be included in the personal statement and can be useful. Okay, thanks. Hello, my name is Juliana. Thank you for the presentations. As program directors, did you notice any difference in how you evaluate the candidates when the interview was in person versus now that is via Zoom? Like, do you give more weight to the application? Or do you think the interview has the same weight as it had before? Yeah, I think that the interview has the most weight. So as the professor said, the interview is a very important component. The problem is that from the program and from the applicant, understanding that we have to demonstrate what we bring to the table and what you bring to the table. So a conscious effort. So I'll say, if you were here, you would see this building. But since you can't see it, let me describe it to you. Apply that to yourself. If I was there in person, because what happened is when people come in in person, they talk to the secretary, they talk to the residents, they talk to 10 people. So we get 10 views. Now this is going to be much more limited. It's unfortunately few residents, et cetera. So to know that we have to demonstrate who we are. And if it's a virtual medium, it's our responsibility from the program and from the applicant. And I fully agree. You know, we live in a virtual world. And just like Farouk said, if you were listening, we may not see the nonverbal cues, but we have to adapt. So on your end, it's going to save you a lot of money. I know that. But you're going to have those opportunities to apply where when I, and I'm sure when they were applying, it took a lot of logistics and it limited how you compensate, how we both work together is the challenge. So it can go either way. Any tips? Smile. Be nice. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Our training directors are still going to be here if you would have any final questions. But before that, I'll pass it on to Dr. Williams for his closing comments as well as final takeaways from this session. So as closing, I also want to thank all of our program directors for the invaluable information you've given. Please take this to heart. These are the folks who are reading your applications. So when they're telling you something, it's coming straight from the person who is going to be evaluating what you've turned in. If you want to say something to the mentorship, do not leave even this meeting without finding someone that you can talk with. This is an amazing place, APA. So find someone that you can, you get their number from, you talk to them. When they say, I'm giving you my number, call me, what they mean, I'm giving you my number, call me. So use that. I heard a lot about the culture of, you know, let me stay back a little and not say too much. This isn't one of those times. Use your mentors. Take advantage of their wisdom and their guidance. Also talk with each other. It doesn't just have to be Reddit. You can do this together. So please talk to your mentors. Make sure that you use the tips that they gave you. Good luck in your interview season. Thank you.

psychiatry residency

Vikas Gupta

CV tips

personal statements

interview preparation

emotional intelligence

letters of recommendation

mentorship

program directors

networking

application process

American Medical Association

medical students