WILTIMS #154: The interviewee becomes the interviewer

Today I had my last behavioral health clinical conference at our main teaching hospital. These are the sessions where we split into groups of ten, disperse around this and several other hospitals, and watch as one student interviews an actual psychiatric patient about their life and the difficulties that led to their inpatient stay. Typically, there are also a couple other students either on their third year psychiatry rotation or part of a different program. I reluctantly volunteered to do today's interview and it went surprisingly well.

While I sat waiting for the overseeing doctor to fetch the patient, one of the third year students turned to me and asked, rather cryptically, "Do you remember me?" Though she did seem vaguely familiar, I couldn't think of any reason I would know a third year, let alone why a third year would know me. She continued, "I interviewed you last year."

Now, in a flash of confusion due to the setting and an overactive imagination, I briefly thought, "But I haven't ever been a psych patient..." before realizing that she had in fact been one of my interviewers for admission to this med school. Our school uses the multiple mini interview (MMI) system, with eight rapid-fire six-minute sessions. The interviewers are a diverse assortment of people including professors (both researchers and physicians), administrators, and often one student. Recognition finally dawning, I told her that I did, in fact, remember her and the questions she asked me.

She, and I'm not making this up, said that she remembered giving me the highest marks of all the interviewees that day. I abashedly thanked her and pointed out that she may have made the difference that put me in the seat next to her today. How's that for a nice boost of confidence before taking the hot seat?

TIL: Psychosomatic medicine is a subspecialty of psychiatry, formerly known as consult-liaison psychiatry, that deals with the interplay of psychological disorders with medical ones. This can mean both psych symptoms as a reaction to a medical diagnosis and physical symptoms experienced as a manifestation of an underlying physiological illness.