LAUSR

T he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic coincided with the interviewing period of multiple surgical subspecialty fellowships including cardiothoracic surgery, complex general surgical oncology, transplant surgery, plastic surgery, and vascular surgery, among others. Due to recommendations for social distancing and institutional travel bans, fellowship programs have been required to rapidly transition from the traditional, in-person interviews, to web-based, virtual interviews. The interview is a critical phase of trainee selection, and several programs have published their new fellowship interview structures, as virtual interviewing will likely remain the norm for the foreseeable future. This new structure will dramatically impact upcoming fellowship interviews and the medical student residency Match, and programs with virtual interviewing experience are beginning to describe their virtual interviewing methods. Rather than describe 1 specific program’s approach, the purpose of this manuscript is to provide recommendations to both applicants and institutions for virtual interview processes based on the experiences and perspectives of recent surgical fellowship candidates. In total, the authors completed 40 virtual interviews in 3 surgical subspecialties for programs located across multiple geographic regions of the United States and Canada. The suggestions we present are not specialty specific, but are broadly applicable to virtual interviews across a range of trainee levels including medical school, residency, and fellowship.