Fellowship Mock Interview
Master 40 Fellowship interview questions covering research goals, funding justification, and academic potential.
Question 39 of 40
As a fellow with our program, how would you handle a member of the patient-care team who clearly wasn't pulling their weight?
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Ryan Brunner has over ten years of experience recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates in the healthcare, public service, and private manufacturing/distribution industries.
In your fellowship, you will work with a diverse team of individuals as part of a larger care team, just as you did as a resident. This could include faculty physicians, fellowship colleagues, medical students, nursing staff, scheduling staff, administrators, therapists, and social workers. As the physician responsible for the overall care of the patient, your interviewers will expect you to be willing and ready to take charge and be responsible for the patient care work of all staff who come in contact with your patients.
Ryan Brunner has over ten years of experience recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates in the healthcare, public service, and private manufacturing/distribution industries.
Be direct in your approach and consider what is best for the patient. If the team member's lack of care on the job puts a patient at risk, it is best to have an immediate conversation with the employee and bring it to the attention of their leader. If the person was having an off day, talk about how your ability to build a good rapport with your entire care team would enable you to have a professional, caring, and frank conversation with any member of your care team in this situation.
Ryan Brunner has over ten years of experience recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates in the healthcare, public service, and private manufacturing/distribution industries.
"I pride myself on my ability to build respect and trust with all staff. This includes the administrative leaders, RNs, and patient care techs that I would work beside every day. In my fellowship, this trust and respect would enable me to have a clear and respectful conversation with any staff member I thought wasn't pulling their weight. I would end the conversation on a positive note by telling them that I believe in them. If the situation would put the health of a patient at risk, I wouldn't hesitate to escalate it to the direct supervisor of the employee immediately."
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Communication and trust are key to teamwork. I would invite them to share if they were having any issues with the way things were going with the work or outside of work and how I can facilitate their ability to help the team. I would be open-minded to suggestions for reassigning tasks to ideally meet everyone’s strengths.
Jaymie's Feedback
Great answer. It's important to have an open and honest conversation with the person directly and understand what challenges or barriers they are facing before jumping to conclusions about them. You also demonstrate a willingness to accommodate and collaborate with others as well.
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