Background: With the increased worldwide involvement of the United States military, the demand for surgeons continues to increase. Deployment of these individuals places a great burden on their families, their surgical practices, and their careers. Many of these physicians are still in residency and attempting to obtain further training positions. We describe the use of SKYPE to perform interviews of two deployed fellowship applicants.
Methods: 26 applicants were invited to interview for the minimally invasive/endoscopic surgery fellowship at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center for the 2010-2011 academic year. Two of the applicants were physicians deployed to military bases, Afghanistan and Germany respectively. Real-time video conference interview were conducted between the applicants and faculty members using a MAC BOOK PRO, OS X platform with wireless internet access in a portable manner.
Conclusion: Remote computer audio-video processing is an acceptable, secure way to conduct fellowship interviews for deployed physicians and offers an equivalent experience to both interviewers and interviewees. There was no perceived advantage or disadvantage from using this modality for either the two applicants or the other 24 applicants.
Session: Poster
Program Number: P231