Building a Residency Team
O
ne of the most critical tasks for any coaching staff is to get the right players on the team. As a group of faculty mentors to residents, we are entering into a busy recruitment season, with the hope of adding to an already amazing residency team. We received over 500 applications for our 5 open positions to start in June 2022. While it is tempting to use some numerical cut-offs to limit the number of applications that we must review, or even to use artificial intelligence to help us to identify which applications to read, we are deeply committed to mission-aligned, holistic review of every application that we receive. That’s right…old fashioned reading of every application. This is a huge team lift. To accomplish this, we have a team of faculty and resident volunteers who read about 30 applications each. They give us their top choices from their list. Every applicant has their application reviewed by two different reviewers. No reviewers have the same list of 30 applications. If they make it in the top 15-20% of each reviewer’s list, they will likely get an interview. If they make it to the top for only one reviewer, they will get a 3rd and sometimes a 4th set of reviews, so that we can get down to the 35 to 40 applicants that we will ultimately interview this application cycle. But what does it mean to rise to the top of each of these lists? Our residency reviewers are encouraged to consider that applicants are more than their board scores and grades; we strive to review each applicant holistically. We acknowledge that “holistic review” means
different things to different people. When we use that term, we mean that we are looking at the whole of an applicant’s experiences, leadership qualities, attributes, and academic performance, in an attempt to assess the value that they would bring to our program and to society as a future UPMC Otolaryngology residency program alum. And we do all this, while making every admission decision in light of our mission, which is: The primary mission of the Noel Jabbour, MD, MS, FACS residency program is “to train Residency Program Director future otolaryngologists who will be leaders locally, nationally and internationally. We aim to attract diverse resident applicants with a passion for excellence in clinical care, research, and education. We seek to provide an unparalleled depth and breadth of exposure to all aspects of otolaryngology.” This year, as in previous years, we are aiming for a missionaligned, holistic review of each application. We are keenly on the lookout for future leaders, from diverse backgrounds, with trackrecords for the passionate pursuit of excellence. If you know of any, please send them our way.
In This Issue Building a Residency Team
1
New Residents
9
New Faculty
2
Alumni Spotlight
11
Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh
Webinar Information
Back Cover
5
New Fellows
7