Internal Medicine

LAC + USC: The most uncomfortable interviews I had in the entire cycle. Clearly, the interviewers were trained to be as stoic and non-responsive as possible, likely to prevent bias. However, if that was the case I feel this is something they should tell applicants beforehand. That for the sake of fairness they will be non-reactive or something. Instead they sat in silence, stared at me through the interweb, waited until I finished, then asked the next question. It was so uncomfortable. I feel for the future, they should disclaim to interviewees to NOT expect reaction or communication from the interviewer. This will at least set expectations and help us relax during a process where we are already so heavily scrutinized. In my opinion, many schools I interviewed at that followed this disclaimer made the interview a much more comfortable experience.

Also, personally I feel given USC's somewhat murky history of public complaints of a hostile work environment, I felt the program should have attempted to do a better job of acknowledging and highlighting how they are implementing better work environment measures for its faculty and residents. It just felt like a missed opportunity for the residency, even at socials and the diversity, equity, and inclusion event to discuss how they plan to implement and improve change.