{"id":1491,"date":"2010-04-06T11:17:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T15:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/its-springtime-that-must-mean-its-time-for-that-speed-dating-game-we-call-the-fellowship-match\/"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:44:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:44:12","slug":"its-springtime-that-must-mean-its-time-for-that-speed-dating-game-we-call-the-fellowship-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2010\/04\/06\/its-springtime-that-must-mean-its-time-for-that-speed-dating-game-we-call-the-fellowship-match\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s springtime&#8230;.that must mean it&#8217;s time for that speed dating game we call the fellowship match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every year around this time I spend hours thinking about what\u00a0qualities go into making a good fellow and, equally important, how to\u00a0figure out if\u00a0an applicant has these qualities.\u00a0When we review\u00a0applications, we have only a few pieces of objective information such as academic pedigree, board scores, and publications;\u00a0the rest is highly subjective half-truths from the personal statements and letters of recommendation.\u00a0At the interview, we try to weed out the\u00a0folks we think we&#8217;d have trouble working with and do the best we can to identify &#8220;research potential,&#8221; which we all know is a highly imperfect science!\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAs the years roll by, I&#8217;ve developed more humility\u00a0when attempting to identify research potential &#8230; my mistakes have been in both overestimating and underestimating applicants.\u00a0At the same time, I&#8217;ve realized that\u00a0by the time someone applies for a fellowship position, their\u00a0character, intelligence, and clinical skills are fully formed\u00a0\u2014\u00a0we&#8217;ve never gone wrong recruiting based on these factors.\u00a0If I can verify these qualities from someone I trust at another institution,\u00a0their word goes much farther than\u00a0letters of recommendation.\u00a0In the end, we&#8217;re recruiting colleagues to work with for at least 3 years, and for much longer for those who end up joining\u00a0our faculty.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe applicant has\u00a0a much harder job &#8230; you have to sell yourself, without overselling, and at the same time figure out if the program meets your needs and goals.\u00a0Although we faculty members feel like our information is limited, <em>you<\/em> are\u00a0working from an even\u00a0more limited database.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWe&#8217;d love to hear your thoughts on this dating game.\u00a0How did you decide which programs\u00a0would be best for you? Should fellows (and programs) go for the best or the best fit?\u00a0Finally, momentum is building to move the fellowship match to later in residency&#8230;what do you think about this idea?<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year around this time I spend hours thinking about what\u00a0qualities go into making a good fellow and, equally important, how to\u00a0figure out if\u00a0an applicant has these qualities.\u00a0When we review\u00a0applications, we have only a few pieces of objective information such as academic pedigree, board scores, and publications;\u00a0the rest is highly subjective half-truths from the personal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}