Application Process Improvement Committee

Current Chair: Liza Smith, MD

Vice Chair: Tim Fallon, MD and Erin McDonough, MD

Board Liaison: Alexis Peletier-Bui, MD

The purpose of this committee is to improve the current state of the application and interview process for both residency programs and applicants.

To join the committee, please sign up here: CORD Committee Application

Goals & Objectives:

1. Understand and educate others on the current state of medical student applications and the effects on the interview process for both residency programs and applicants.
2. Propose solutions that can be implemented by programs that may help improve the interview process for both residency programs and applicants.
3. Work with content experts and national organizations to investigate new approaches and potential improvements to the application process.
4. Expand on the scholarship surrounding the application and interview processes, to help improve the current state for emergency medicine and all specialties.

The 2024-2025 application season:

• APIC 2024-2025 Application and Interview Season Best Practices
• 2024-2025 MyERAS Applicant and Advisor Emergency Medicine Guide
• The County Program community of practice has agreed that participating programs will release interview invites to applicants on October 16th at 7PM Eastern time.  Interview sign ups should begin the next day (October 17th), so the applicants have the evening of the 16th to plan out which invites to accept and how to maximize their interview schedule. Additional interviews may be offered after the 16th, but applicants should not expect an interview invite prior to the 16th from participating programs. As a reminder, the Universal Release Date was created with applicant and program input to lessen the administrative/scheduling burden on applicants as they can have a more complete idea of which programs are offering them interviews before they begin scheduling and to reduce applicant need to cancel/reschedule interviews throughout the interview season.  Setting a release date several weeks after ERAS opens allows programs the time needed to holistically evaluate applications prior to offering interviews.

The 2023-2024 application season:

• Emergency Medicine Unified Interview Release Date
  • Participation is optional, and at the discretion of the program. If your program will be participating, please complete this form: Emergency Medicine Unified Interview Release Date 2023-2024
  • A list of participating programs can be found here: Emergency Medicine Unified Interview Release Date 2023-2024 – Participating Programs
• APIC 2023-2024 Application and Interview Season Best Practices
• APIC/ASC-EM 2023-2024 MyERAS Applicant and Advisor Guide for Emergency Medicine
• For more information pertaining to the new MyERAS Application, please see the New MyERAS® Application: Guide for Emergency Medicine from the ERAS Application Working Group
• SAEM RAMS Webinar - MyERAS 2023-2024 Updates: Guidance for Applicants
• EMRA Hangouts Webinar - New MyERAS Updates
• ALiEM Podcast - The ERAS Application - New and Improved

Reference Information

• AAMC: Interviews in GME: Where Do We Go From Here?
• AAMC: Interviews in UME: Where Do We Go From Here?
• AAMC: The Cost of Interviewing for Residency Posted December 28, 2022.
• AAMC: Supplemental ERAS Application Data and Reports
• CORD Board of Directors Recommendations for Emergency Medicine Recruitment Season 2022-2023
• CORD APIC Best Practices for the 2022-2023 Residency Application Cycle
• Physician Accountability's (CoPA) Undergraduate Medical Education-Graduate Medical Education Review Committee (UGRC)
• No Match Monday Emergency Medicine Advising Guide: Program Directors Edition

Accomplishments from 2022-2023

Emergency Medicine Activities

• EM participation in the ERAS Supplemental Application utilizing Program Signaling
• 2 EM representatives to the ERAS Supplemental Application (SuppApp) research group

Didactics at CORD 2023 Academic Assembly

• Preference Signaling in EM: How it Started…How it’s Going
• Accelerated Pathway Programs in Emergency Medicine: An Introduction
• No Match Monday: A Program Directors Survival Guide for the SOAP Process
• Updates to Residency Application and Interview Process, on Behalf of the Application Process Improvement Committee
• Late Breaking! New ERAS Application

Webinars Relevant to the Application Process and Interview Season

• CORD Connects, May 26, 2022 Preference/Program Signaling in EM: Guidance for Programs
• SAEM RAMS, July 13, 2022 Preference/Program Signaling: A Crash Course for the Upcoming Application Cycle
• EMRA Hangouts, July 21, 2022 Preference Signaling 101
• CORD Connects, September 27, 2022 Analysis of the 2022 Match - What Happened and What Should We Do?
• CORD Connects, January 26, 2023 A Program Director’s Guide to the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP)
• OPDA/AAMC Webinar, April 11, 2023 A Preliminary Research Review and Program Reactions to Program Signaling

Publications from APIC

• Pelletier-Bui A, Schnapp B, Smith L, Franzen D, Werley E, McDonough E, Camejo M. Making Our Preferences Known: Preference Signaling in Emergency Medicine. West J Emerg Med. 2022;23(1):72-75. doi:10.5811/westjem.2021.10.53996
  • Recently acknowledged as an outstanding publication based on performance metrics by Jeffrey N. Love, MD, MHPE, MSc, CORD Guest Editor, WestJEM Special Issue in Educational Research & Practice
• Kiemeney M, Franzen D. Availability of Emergency Medicine Away Rotations. AEM Educ Train. 2020;5(2):e10487. Published 2020 Jul 1. doi:10.1002/aet2.10487
• Pelletier-Bui A, Franzen D, Smith L, et al. COVID-19: A Driver for Disruptive Innovation of the Emergency Medicine Residency Application Process. West J Emerg Med. 2020;21(5):1105-1113. Published 2020 Aug 19. doi:10.5811/westjem.2020.8.48234
• Huang RD, Lutfy-Clayton L, Franzen D, et al. More Is More: Drivers of the Increase in Emergency Medicine Residency Applications. West J Emerg Med. 2020;22(1):77-85. Published 2020 Dec 10. doi:10.5811/westjem.2020.10.48210
• Hopson LR, Edens MA, Goodrich M, et al. Calming Troubled Waters: A Narrative Review of Challenges and Potential Solutions in the Residency Interview Offer Process. West J Emerg Med. 2020;22(1):1-6. Published 2020 Dec 14. doi:10.5811/westjem.2020.11.4970

 Topics of Interest for the Future

• Unified Interview Offer Release Date
• Interview Capping and/or Ticketing
• Post-Interview Tokens/Signaling
• Accelerated Pathway Programs in EM
• Branding of EM
• Characteristics of the un-Matched
• Voluntary Early ROL Submission Prior to Second Looks
• Drivers of Past and Future Interview Practices
• Changing Tactics (re: program approaches to recruitment)

If you have any other suggestions or ideas for future exploration as it pertains to the application and interview process, please don’t hesitate to reach out! You can contact APIC leadership at ewerley@pennstatehealth.psu.edu or elizabethbwerley@gmail.com.