Is there a personality type that you have found was most difficult to work effectively with during your residency training or medical school?
As you enter Gastroenterology Fellowship training, you will work side by side with a very diverse group of fellows and faculty, each with their unique personality and work style. Your interviewers ask this question to understand your ability to work with even the most difficult personality styles.
"I would say that my biggest pet peeve is working with colleagues and staff that are poor communicators. As an Internal Medicine Resident, I found that communication lines should always be open between residents, faculty, and the care team. If someone on my team wasn't communicating properly during residency training, I never hesitated to respectfully approach them to explain what I need from them concerning communication. If the problem persisted, I would take it up the proper chain of command. I would use this same approach in training in your GI Fellowship program."
During your years of training hard in residency and medical school, you have worked with a wide variety of physicians and other support staff in many different environments and you more than likely have found a certain personality type or trait that doesn't mesh well with you. Try to talk about a quality that doesn't reflect poorly on you. Talking about demanding personalities may make you seem lazy or unable to work with demanding faculty in the program. Instead, choose a quality that impairs the ability of even the most competent and hard-working doctors from delivering high-quality care or working as part of a high functioning team.
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
My biggest pet peeve is working with a colleague who is always known for being late to work or every event. However, I try to show examples by coming early all the time just like in the military where we believe that 15 mins early is on time.
Marcie's Feedback
It can definitely be frustrating to deal with someone who is always late. It's great that you mention overcoming this issue by setting an example. You might also say that you would discuss this problem privately with your colleague, explain that you feel it's disrespectful, and politely ask if they can try to be on time more frequently. If you encountered someone like this in residency training or medical school, what did you do? Explain how you resolved the issue. The more details you can include, the better! Good job!
Anonymous Answer
I have found that people with poor communication skills who was the most difficult to work with. Usually, I do not hesitate to respectfully approach them about concerns if the problem persists, I would approach the proper chain of command.
Marcie's Feedback
It can definitely be a challenge to work with people who aren't good communicators. Can you give an example of a time in residency training or medical school when you worked with someone like this? Talk the interviewer through how you successfully handled this situation.
Anonymous Answer
People who aren't proactive or those that don't work as a team. Also, the type of personality that keeps to themself and tries to do their work and then leave. We spend so much of our time at work we need to be proactive and helpful towards each other. It fosters a much nicer working environment and in turn, happier colleagues if teamwork is an innate skill of your co-workers.
Jaymie's Feedback
Great start! If you have found any strategies that work well to engage these types of colleagues, feel free to share those as well.
Anonymous Answer
I found it challenging to work with people who are negligent and like to cut corners. I have worked with a colleague who does not appreciate the importance of our work and constantly tries to cut corners. For example, they would not examine patients properly during ward rounds or not take a thorough history on admission. I found it difficult to trust the colleague and as a result, I had to constantly stay back to revisit the task that he had done. I have tried to discuss the matter with him privately in a respectful way. Unfortunately, his behavior has not changed. Due to the concern that his behavior may pose a risk to patient safety, I have escalated the matter to the attending physician.
Jaymie's Feedback
It can be hard to answer these questions without being overly negative about the person. You did a nice job focusing on the behaviors, not the person, which is important. You gave supporting context to help the interviewer understand why working with this person is difficult, and you did an excellent job walking the interviewer through your conflict resolution process of communicating and addressing that person directly before escalating. Nice work.
Anonymous Answer
I have worked in many team settings during residency training and hospitalist jobs and I have been quite flexible and adaptable to work with which I believe is very important for quality and productive teamwork. In terms of a difficult personality, I believe it's difficult to work with someone who does not understand and fulfill their responsibilities in a timely manner. Also, I believe in sharing knowledge and do not hesitate to ask questions if in doubt, especially regarding patient care and safety. I have encountered some people during training who would get upset when I would disturb their sleep on a night call as an intern for patient questions. It was somewhat hard to cope with as a new intern but fortunately, I had another extremely supportive senior and I am grateful for the learning he provided during that rotation as I was able to manage my subsequent night floats with more confidence and I inculcated the same practice for my junior residents.
Jaymie's Feedback
Good job! You weren't negative about anyone in particular and focused your answer on the challenging behaviors they displayed instead. It sounds like you can work well with others, and if you have a conflict, you can find alternative solutions to help you overcome the obstacle.
Anonymous Answer
I am usually able to work and be in a team with people with different personalities; however, people and colleagues with not very good communication skills are challenging to work with. I would like to mention an example of one of my colleagues who had excellent clinical skills and knowledge but his communication skills were suboptimal, specifically, he used to speak very fast and not communicate all his thoughts. I approached this colleague and discussed this point with him, he advised that this has been raised by multiple other colleagues. He thought that he speaks fast to cover for his accent, I reassured him that I do not find his accent difficult to comprehend and that he should be conscious and practice speaking slower, one more advice was to check with others if what he said was easy to understand. After a few months, he thanked me because he found that he was communicating easier with others and this helped him to pass his clinical examination where he had to use his verbal communication skills.
Jaymie's Feedback
You did a nice job avoiding speaking negatively about a colleague and focusing on the issue that caused the difficulty. You were able to use effective communication and interpersonal skills to help coach and mentor your colleague, which ultimately improved their communication skills, benefiting both the team and patients. Well done!
Anonymous Answer
I am ENFP by personality type and am open to collaborating with all personality types. I have learned from some of my introverted friends that extroverts can be very exhausting. Over the years and especially over the pandemic, I have explored the introverted portion of myself and thus I can develop meaningful connections without much energy expenditure from my introverted colleagues.
Jaymie's Feedback
The interviewer will be impressed that you've done self-exploration and learned how your personality type fits into the workplace. Great job!
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