Talk about your charting and dictation experience during your prior training. What EHR programs did you gain experience in?
It's easy to fall behind on charting after a long and busy day in a surgical critical care setting, but the results can be catastrophic. Since patient notes can impact new staff at shift turnover, your interviewers must be assured that you would always prioritize your charting during each shift, even when time gets busy. With this question, they want to hear that you have hands-on experience in a variety of EHRs and that you prioritize your charting when you are able.
"I learned a few lessons on the timeliness of patient charting during my general surgery residency training and made it a priority in my final two years. I will bring great habits to your surgical critical care fellowship and hands-on experience with EPIC. My residency program taught me to be thorough in my documentation, both for patient care and billing purposes."
Speak openly and honestly about how you prioritized your patient charting during residency training and push your answer further by highlighting any direct feedback you received on your charting skills from faculty. If your residency training involved surgical procedures, be sure to elaborate on the fact that accurate patient notes were vital to the long-term care of patients you operated on. Then tie what you learned in residency training to a year focusing on critical care patients as a surgical critical care fellow.
