Preventing illegal interview questions: The need for training skilled interviewers

摘要

I read with much interest the August 2013 article by Hern and colleagues1 regarding potentially illegal questions in residency interviews. As a female candidate I was asked about ethnicity, family planning, and relationship status during my own interview process. One interviewer systematically listed each program in the region to solicit my planned rank order list. This type of questioning is not unusual, and one study2 found that 56/671 (8.3%; 95% CI = 6.4%-10.7%) of emergency medicine residency applicants were asked such questions by program representatives. Providing interviewers with targeted training to prepare them to conduct ethical and effective interviews with applicants could help residency programs to address this problem.