What kinds of review questions would you ask yourself as a resident after dealing with a difficult or challenging patient situation?
All residents want to have positive and impactful shifts every day during their residency training, but this is not a reality. Things happen in patient care situations and things can go awry quickly. Your interviewers know that t's important to reflect as an individual or a team and extract the lesson to learn how to be better.
"As a resident with your program, taking time to sit back at the end of each day and reflecting on the situations faced that day would be extremely important for me to learn and grow. This reflection will include speaking with the faculty and other resident colleagues so we can learn together from our experiences. In a very challenging situation, I think it would be vital to distance myself from the motions and review things logically later on. When faced with a challenging situation, I would first ask how I could've handled the situation better and would look for other insight. Then, I would ask myself how I will handle a similar situation that will likely happen again in the future so I am mentally prepared for it."
It's human nature to rationalize or justify and not face the difficult feelings or emotions of a situation gone bad, but this reflection is extremely important so that it doesn't happen again. Talk to your interviewer about the importance of analyzing a situation and reflecting upon it to improve moving forward. If you have an example of a time where you did this during your medical school or other medical-related position, don't hesitate to talk about it with your interviewers.
