Residents as Members of Intern Selection Committees: Can They Partially Replace Faculty?

Background: Faculty involvement in the residency selection process is important, but increasing pressures on available faculty resources have made their ability to participate more difficult. Residents may be acceptable substitutions for some faculty in the selection process. Purpose: To test 2 new interview models and explore whether residents could partially replace faculty by examining what role the interview itself plays in the overall assessment of an applicant, comparing faculty and resident ratings of the interview, and asking whether partially substituting residents for faculty had an impact on the match outcome. Methods: Applicants to an internal medicine residency program were assigned to 1 of 3 interview models: faculty-faculty, resident-faculty, resident-faculty-faculty. The 12 interview days were randomly assigned to a model and all applicants on each day had the same model. Interviewers used an applicant assessment form to assign ratings to 6 components of the portfolio and a final score. Results: For both residents and faculty, the final score was highly correlated with the formal interview component. Within-model analyses showed residents consistently gave more favorable scores than faculty interviewers. There was no impact of interview model on initial or final rank position. Similarly, there was no difference between models in their match "success" rates. Conclusions: Residents can be successfully substituted for some faculty in the residency selection process. The use of residents does not impact the match results. Developing a small, committed group of interviewers should benefit both programs and applicants.