Before your fellowship interview, spend time thinking about the important lessons you learned during residency, focusing on the ones you will carry with you for the rest of your career. Giving an unconventional example of something you learned outside of clinical competency will help you stand out from other candidates.

"The most important lesson I learned was to not let my work become routine. By the time I started PGY-2, I was used to seeing certain conditions on a daily basis, and it began to feel like I could write up assessments on these patients before I even saw them. Fortunately, one of my attending physicians warned me against being too routine with patients. Doing so makes it easy to overlook small details that could have potentially devastating effects on a patient's outcome. He taught me that no symptom should go uninvestigated, even the common ones, and I vowed to be thorough in my approach for every single patient. As an aspiring fellow, I will certainly uphold this standard of care and give every patient my utmost attention."