GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION
Chad Mayer, MD, PhD
Harsh Sule, MD, MPP
Kelly Barringer, MD
Lancelot Beier, MD
Andrew Starnes
Andrew King, MD, FACEP
Understanding the AAMC Standardized Video Interview
SAEM PULSE | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2017
By Chad Mayer, MD, PhD; Harsh Sule, MD, MPP; Kelly Barringer, MD; Lancelot Beier, MD; Andrew Starnes; Andrew King, MD, FACEP
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The Standardized Video Interview (SVI) is a new tool from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) that is being piloted with emergency medicine (EM) residency applicants during the 2018 application cycle. It is composed of six questions designed to assess an applicant’s knowledge of professional behaviors as well as interpersonal and communication skills. The interview videos are scored by third-party raters that have undergone extensive inter-rater reliability testing. A composite score is included within each emergency medicine residency applicant’s Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) file. Raw videos are made available to residency programs for direct review. For the ERAS 2018 cycle AAMC has required that all applicants to ACGME-accredited EM programs complete the SVI. While those that do not complete will still be eligible to apply, residency programs will be informed that the SVI was not completed. The SVI is formatted so that applicants can sign in during an assigned window, test their equipment, and then answer six different questions. Applicants have 30 seconds to read each question and then three minutes for each recorded response—3.5 minutes per question cycle. Each answer is scored from 1-5, making the possible composite score range from 6-30. During the 2017 ERAS cycle, some applicants completed the SVI in order to contribute data to the AAMC for interrater reliability testing. Data obtained was not considered a part of their application. Emergency Medicine applicants participating in this pilot/ research study may be asking themselves, “What does this add to my application?” The best answer may be that the SVI provides applicants a chance to showcase the intangibles about themselves that are neither entered on their application nor reflected by their standardized examination scores. Within their education materials describing the SVI, the AAMC states that the SVI has been shown, based on preliminary data, to not correlate with USMLE Step 1 scores. Thus, the SVI is hopefully accomplishing its overarching goal: measure an aspect of a residency applicant’s worthiness that is not captured by their performance on a standardized examination. The specialty of emergency medicine continues to gain popularity among graduating medical students, hence competition for a limited number of residency positions continues to increase.
"Identifying strategies to assess an applicant’s intangibles within the pre-interview application is an area that the SVI can make an immediate impact by essentially allowing everyone to have an ‘interview’." Similarly, the number of applications submitted per applicant has grown, thereby making it challenging for applicants to positively distinguish themselves. Although an imperfect tool, USMLE scores provide a standardized method of evaluating applicants and can help programs perform initial application screenings in a systematic manner. Similarly, the Standardized Letter of Evaluation (SLOE) used in EM helps programs develop a more comprehensive understanding of an applicant’s performance in medical school when compared to free-form letters. Unfortunately, the SLOE is not without its own limitations.1 Reviewers tend to provide overwhelmingly positive reviews regarding their medical students because negative SLOEs may inhibit an applicant’s chance of matching in a residency program, which ultimately reflects poorly on the applicant’s medical school. Holistic application review involves a flexible, individualized way of assessing an applicant’s capabilities through the balanced consideration regarding experiences, attributes, and academic metrics. When considered collectively, these attributes may define how an individual may perform as a physician. The SVI can provide data that contributes to the holistic review of an applicant, especially pertaining to their professionalism and communication skills. Currently, the only evaluations of an applicant’s professionalism and communication skills are from rotating