UCSD Interview #1

The office of admissions didn't give us applicants our interview schedules until literally 15 minutes before the first interview. One person had to take the shuttle bus down to the Hillcrest campus. I got lucky and had both of my interviews in the VA Medical Center, which is just a five minute walk from the admissions office.

I couldn't have been more lucky to get Dr. XXX as my first interviewer. He had a calming voice and demeanor that helped set me at ease when I most needed it. He started the interview by talking about the UCSD program, as if he were trying to anticipate questions that I might ask him later. "The way I see it is that at this point we're beyond the evaluative stage," he said. Good to know, I thought. I let him talk, since that's what he seemed to want, and also as he proved to be very informative, but at the same time I grew increasingly concerned that I was not maximizing this time to convince him that I belong at UCSD.

The entire interview was conversational, though Dr. XXX did ask me a few direct questions about my application. The first direct question was about my experience working with magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is a technology that measures tiny magnetic fields emanating from the brain and infers brain activity from that information. "Why hasn't MEG caught on? Why isn't it being used clinically?" I told Dr. XXX that the fundamental hurdle facing MEG as a clinically relevant tool is the complexity and unreliability of its data analysis. A magnetic field is generated when a current flows in a straight line, such as during an action potential along axons. The problem is that, if two action potentials travel parallel to each other but in opposite directions, the magnetic fields that each action potential creates would cancel the other out. Another problem limiting the usefulness of MEG is that you can only really measure magnetic fields generated close to the brain surface - in the cortex, but not in deeper brain structures like the thalamus or striatum.

This entire MEG-related interaction lasted only about 2-3 minutes. Dr. XXX did seem genuinely curious about a rather obscure experience in my application, but I got the sense that the secondary purpose of the question was to evaluate how I discussed my past research experience.

The conversation then shifted to running and triathlons. I got the sense that Dr. XXX knew that this subject would make me more comfortable. He showed me a picture on his wall of him finishing a triathlon while holding the hands of his two children. "They don't let you do that anymore," he said. I asked, "Did you do triathlons in medical school?" It turns out that he did, and that he surfed. "Sounds like you had a well-rounded life while in medical school." Dr. XXX actually went to medical school here at UCSD, so this fact was very relevant to me. He also got married during his fourth year.

Toward the end of the interview, I found an opportunity to tell him about my recent medical relief mission to Honduras, since it isn't included in my application. Dr. XXX raised his eyebrows and said that he in fact participates in a very similar program in Fiji. He then explained to me how the cultural history of the island has created a sort of health care crisis. There are essentially two separate populations on Fiji: native islanders and Indians brought over during British colonial rule. There is a distrust between the two groups such that the native islanders won't even accept medical care from someone of Indian ethnicity; most doctors there are Indian. People in Fiji also have to deal with tropical diseases, and recently there was a big flooding problem. So, Dr. XXX talked about his experiences volunteering with the Loloma Foundation (I pulled out a pen in the middle of the interview and wrote down the name of the organization). I felt good that this was yet another topic on which we had something in common.

I left the interview with a decidedly positive feeling. If we really are "beyond the evaluative stage," then this interview was about personality and making connections. I think I did that very well with that in both the running and international volunteer work parts of the interview. Still, it's difficult to get a sense of how this interview will impact the committee's decision.