Challenging Residency Interview Question (Who are your Role Models in Medicine?)

Who are your role models in medicine? How have your role models shaped the way you want to practice medicine?

In a recent mock interview session, a residency applicant asked me for advice on how best to answer these questions. He had been asked these challenging questions in a family medicine residency interview, and felt that he had delivered a poor response. I asked him to reflect on teachers that had made a significant impact in his medical education.

There are teachers at every medical school that make a lasting impression on their students. At the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, that teacher is Dr. Jeanette Norden. Dr. Norden is a Professor and Director of Medical Education in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

What makes her stand out as an educator? Long ago, Dr. Norden recognized that students must be prepared to handle the emotional side of medicine. The physician-patient encounter is often an emotional interaction. Physicians must be equipped to manage varying emotions, including sadness, grief, anger, and distress. The astute physician is also aware that emotional cues may be subtle.

Although emotions must be recognized and acknowledged, research indicates that medical professionals sometimes fail to do so. One videotaped analysis of histories performed by senior medical students found that "patients were often forced to repeat key phrases such as 'I was feeling very low' as many as 10 times in order to get students to acknowledge their mood disturbance."
 

Ken Bain, Vice Provost for University Learning at Montclair State University, described Dr. Norden's innovative approaches in the journal Women in Higher Education. "She invited surviving family members to speak with the class about how doctors had treated them during the loved one’s fatal illness," wrote Bain. "She brought in a woman who had cared for a husband with Alzheimer’s disease to talk about it.”

“Students told me that they didn’t feel like they were getting good exposure to how a disease affects someone as an individual, how it affects families,” said Dr. Norden in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Reporter.

For her efforts, Dr. Norden has been the recipient of multiple teaching awards. There are dedicated individuals like Dr. Norden at every medical school. Which teacher made a significant impact on you? Why?