I’ve been asked to speak at a few schools on tips for succeeding in residency. Rather than give them a few tips in a PowerPoint or hand them one of the books I’d already written, I asked myself: At the moment a student gets the very first interview email, what is their next best step?

For one student, it was impossible to identify a misstep, and that misstep is why I authored this book. He applied to a residency site on time and because he dutifully didn’t check email during rotation, he missed not only an email, but an email that had a phone appointment set for that day.

He then immediately emailed back apologizing for the miss and asked to reschedule. As soon as that second email went out, his phone rang. On the other line was a three person panel starting the phone interview - now.

This flash interview was clearly meant to screen applicants by asking tough questions that one could not look up quickly. While I will talk more about that type of interview in this book, what I realized was there is no “In case of interview invitation, break glass”, where students know exactly where to start once they do get an invitation.

This audiobook is that first step - a quick run-through of do's and don’ts, so you don’t get blindsided. Hopefully, you’ll optimistically listen to it ahead of that first interview email.