Cardiothoracic Surgery Interviews and Selection in a Pandemic Era - Lessons to Learn.

Introduction: Candidate selection for cardiothoracic surgery (CTS) training programs is challenging. The recent pandemic has impacted a program's ability to meet matriculants in-person. We hypothesized that a central venue at the CTS annual meeting could prove as a favorable supplement for programs and applicants.

Methods: Surveys were sent to adult cardiothoracic and congenital cardiac surgery training program directors (PD) and department chairs or division chiefs. Separately, surveys were sent to applicants from the 2018 through 2023 electronic residency application service match process.

Results: A total of 166 individuals (PDs and department chairs or division chiefs) were contacted. This represented 94 unique programs, and 45 programs responded. The majority of these programs (88.9%) felt that social gatherings were valuable in evaluating applicants and 86.7% would be interested in a social event at an Society of Thoracic Surgery annual meeting. 54% of applicants did not get an accurate impression of the programs to inform their rank list through virtual interviews, 70% would not be able to accept the same number of interviews in-person versus virtual, and 94% would be interested in attending an annual conference to meet program faculty.

Conclusions: A centralized in-person interview event allows for fiscal and scheduling efficiencies, while creating an opportunity for an equitable exchange between potential candidates and PDs in an efficient manner. Such an event would cost a fraction of what our profession has been incurring, could diversify our workforce, would create early mentoring linkages, and perhaps remodel the way we select trainees.