Virtual Versus In-Person Surgical Fellowship Interviews and Ranking Variability: the COVID-19 Experience

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of interview format changes (in-person to virtual, one-to-one to multiple-to-one) necessitated by the COVID-19 travel restrictions on candidate ranking variabilities. METHOD: In 2018/2019, the glaucoma fellowship interviews were conducted in-person and one-to-one, whereas in 2020, interviews were virtual and multiple (interviewers)-to-one (candidate). We compared ranking ranges of interviewers within the same virtual room (WSR) and not within the same virtual room (NWSR) to assess the effect of this change on ranking variabilities. We also compared ranking categories (“accept,” “alternate,” and “pass”) agreements between in-person and virtual interviews to assess the effect of this change on ranking variabilities. RESULTS: NWSR and WSR mean rankings differed by 1.33 (95% confidence interval difference 0.61 to 2.04, p = 0.0003), with WSR interviewers having less variability than NWSR pairs. The variability of in-person interviews and later virtual interviews showed no differences (weighted Kappa statistic 0.086 for 2018, 0.158 for 2019, and 0.101 for 2020; p < 0.05 for all years). The overall least attractive candidate has the lowest variability; the most attractive candidate has the second lowest variability. CONCLUSION: Grouping interviewers decreased ranking variabilities, while a change from in-person to virtual interview format did not increase the ranking variabilities.