Impromptu Response to Adverse Weather: One School’s Successful Application of Digital Interviewing for Medical School Admissions

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. In-person interviewing is the norm during the medical school application process, but it is not always possible due to reasons such as exorbitant cost of travel, work or residence outside the country and adverse travel conditions. In January 2016 during Winter Storm Jonas in the eastern United States of America, officials at the West Virginia University School of Medicine (WVU SOM) mandated a closure of the campus resulting in the cancellation of twenty on-site medical school interviews. The impromptu solution to overcoming this obstacle to in-person interviewing is described here as a case study. The successful use of digital interviewing has already been described at the residency and fellowship level; we believe this is the first reported case study about the successful use of FaceTime interviewing at the medical school level, and it may encourage admissions officials to expand the use of this modality in medical student recruitment.