During your residency training, did you find any personality types that were difficult for you to work effectively with?

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As you come from a robust General Surgery residency program and enter a smaller and more focused Surgical Oncology fellowship, you will work side by side more intimately with a 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 challenging personality styles.

First, you'll want to pick 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 prevents 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. Knowing that you are human like anyone else, you don't want to skirt this question and say that you get along well with every personality type.

"From the classroom to the OR, I have most often been challenged by staff who are poor communicators. As a General Surgery 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 Surgical Oncology fellowship program."

Anonymous Answer

"I didn't get along with residents that couldn't take responsibility if they made a mistake and they started every sentence with "it wasn't my fault" I found it very difficult to have a constructive conversation."

Jaymie's Feedback

While it's always encouraged to give a genuine and honest answer, your response could unintentionally give the interviewer a negative impression. Try rephrasing your answer and including techniques you use to work with those personality types or including a sentence about your ability to accept differences but still work together for the good of patients, as this will end your answer on a more positive note.

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Anonymous Answer

"During my training, I have identified that there are people I work well with, and perhaps some that can be slightly more difficult to work with effectively. Generally, this can arise when working with those who are poor communicators. I attempt to mitigate this issue by continuing to be a good communicator myself and avoiding becoming frustrated with those who are not. Instead, I respectfully clarify what it is I need from them, such as a more detailed description of what they would like me to do differently while completing a laparoscopic procedure. If they aren't able to articulate I may suggest they show me and I can then absorb their adjustments and reattempt their approach. So far, this has been very successful and I plan to continue this approach in the future hopefully as a fellow."

Jaymie's Feedback

This can be a tricky question to answer, but you nailed it! You didn't speak negatively about anyone, and you took a difficult personality type to work with and spun it into a positive. Great job giving the interviewer examples and walking them through how you try and collaborate and overcome those barriers with poor communicators.