Questions to Ask at a GPR Interview
For final-year dental students and new dentists interviewing for a general practice residency, and for an AEGD, where most of the same questions apply. The list follows the interview day: the program director first, then the clinic, hospital rotations and call, sedation, implants and specialty work, the questions better put to current residents, and last the stipend, licensure, where graduates go and what happens after the interview. Two programs with the same name can offer very different years, so most of the questions ask for a number, a schedule or a recent example that you can compare from one interview to the next.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The program
How is the year divided between the dental clinic, the operating room and rotations on other services?
Why ask it
Get it in weeks, or as one sample month. Every month spent on another service is a month out of the dental chair, and that split decides most of what you will be able to do by the end.
What should a resident be able to do on the last day that they could not do on the first?
Why ask it
Directors who have thought about this name procedures and situations: a surgical extraction without help, a medically complicated patient planned from start to finish. Set the answer beside what you want from the year, because it is the nearest thing to a syllabus you will hear.
Who are the patients here, and how do they reach the clinic?
Why ask it
Some hospital programs mostly see people referred by medical services or people who could not be treated elsewhere, and others run closer to a community practice. Neither is better. What counts is whether it matches the dentistry you want to be comfortable doing afterwards.
What would I get here that I would not get in an AEGD, or the other way around?
Why ask it
The line between the two is blurrier than the labels, so let the director describe the difference in practical terms: hospital time, call, operating room cases, hours in the chair. If you are interviewing at both kinds, put the same question to each and compare.
What are you looking for in the residents you choose?
Why ask it
It sounds like a courtesy, but the answer describes the year. A director who wants people who stay calm with a sick patient in the middle of the night is running a different program from one who wants quick, confident restorative dentists. It also tells you what to bring out in the rest of your interview.
Is there an optional second year, and what do second-year residents do that first-years do not?
Why ask it
Where a second year exists, find out whether those residents get first pick of the implant and sedation cases, and how many first-years stay on. Class size matters for the same reason: it sets how call, operating room days and the complex cases are shared out.
What does the didactic schedule look like: lectures, literature review, case presentations, treatment planning seminars?
Why ask it
Find out when it happens. Teaching at seven in the morning before a full clinic is a different commitment from an afternoon with no patients booked. A resident can tell you how often it is canceled when the clinic is busy.
How often does a resident sit down with you to go over how the year is going?
Why ask it
A scheduled review with procedure counts on the table means someone notices if you have done two root canals by January. Where the answer is 'my door is always open', it falls to you to keep your own log and raise the gaps.
Is anything changing before my class starts: faculty leaving, a clinic move, new equipment, a different hospital affiliation?
Why ask it
You would train in next year's program, not the one on the website. One departing attending in oral surgery or prosthodontics can take a whole kind of case out of the year, so ask who would cover the gap.
When is the next accreditation site visit, and did the last one lead to any changes?
Why ask it
Look up the program's status in the accrediting body's own listing beforehand, so the conversation is about what the reviewers wanted fixed. Whether the year counts toward a license or a later specialty application can turn on that status, depending on where you go next.
Clinic
How many patients does a resident see on a normal clinic day, and how long is a typical appointment?
Why ask it
Volume is a main reason to do the year, so ask for an ordinary Tuesday and not the best day. The number should climb between the first month and the last, and how far it climbs shows how hard the clinic pushes residents to speed up.
Which procedures do residents do most, and which do they finish the year wishing they had done more of?
Why ask it
The second half is the one to listen to. If the gap is crowns, molar root canals or dentures, the next thing to learn is the cause: too few patients, a tight lab budget or no faculty to cover it.
How much of a resident's week is emergency or walk-in clinic compared with comprehensive care?
Why ask it
Emergency clinic builds speed at diagnosis, anesthesia and extractions, but a year of little else is a year with few crowns or dentures. Half days per week is the easiest unit to set beside another program's.
How many attendings are in the clinic on a normal day, and for how many residents?
Why ask it
What you are really asking is how long you wait with a patient numb in the chair before someone can look. The ratio on paper falls apart on a day an attending is out, so find out who covers then.
How does supervision change over the year, from a check at every step to working on my own?
Why ask it
You want both ends: someone at your shoulder in the first weeks and room to finish a procedure without a sign-off by spring. Some programs loosen the checks by the calendar and others resident by resident, and the second suits someone who arrives with more experience.
Do residents write their own treatment plans, full-mouth cases included, and who reviews them?
Why ask it
Planning a whole mouth and then carrying it through is something many students never get to do in a school clinic. Good signs are a regular session where complex plans are presented to the group, and a resident who can say how many cases they have taken from records to the final visit.
Would I have my own dental assistant, and how many chairs would I work from?
Why ask it
Working four-handed out of two chairs is how most people get faster, and many private offices will expect it. If assistants are shared or often pulled away, the residents can tell you how many days a month they end up working alone.
Who books my patients, and what do I do with the hour when one does not show?
Why ask it
An empty chair is a lost case, and missed appointments are common in some hospital and community clinics. Listen for a plan: walk-ins sent your way, a short-notice list, or double booking.
How much fixed and removable prosthodontics does a resident complete, and is there a limit on lab work?
Why ask it
Crowns, bridges and dentures depend on what patients can pay and what the lab budget allows, so the numbers vary a great deal from one program to the next. The follow-up is who pays the lab bill, and whether a case has ever stalled over it.
Which technology do residents use on patients: an intraoral scanner, cone beam imaging, in-house milling or printing, rotary endodontics, a microscope?
Why ask it
The test is what residents use every week, not what the clinic owns. A scanner that lives in one attending's operatory teaches nobody.
How often do residents treat children and patients with special health care needs, and is that in the clinic or the operating room?
Why ask it
For some applicants this is the whole reason to pick a hospital program. A monthly count per resident is worth having, and so is knowing whether anyone teaches behavior guidance in the chair or most of these patients are booked straight for general anesthesia.
Hospital and call
Which off-service rotations do residents do, and how long is each?
Why ask it
Anesthesia, emergency medicine, internal medicine and oral surgery are the usual candidates, but the list and the lengths are each program's own. Add up the weeks away from the dental chair, then ask residents which rotation earned its place.
On the anesthesia rotation, do dental residents start IVs, manage airways and run cases, or mostly observe?
Why ask it
Hands-on time here is what makes later sedation training make sense. A current resident can give you a rough count of IV starts and intubations, where the director may only know what the rotation is meant to offer.
How is call arranged: how many nights a month, from home or in the hospital, and is it shared with oral surgery?
Why ask it
Get the count for the heaviest month, not the average, and how close to the hospital a resident on home call has to live. Where oral surgery shares the pager, who takes which calls decides how much trauma you see.
What comes in on call, and what is the dental resident expected to handle alone?
Why ask it
Expect to hear about facial swellings, knocked-out or broken teeth, bleeding after extractions and consults from the wards. The follow-up is who you phone when it is beyond you, and whether that person comes in or talks you through it.
How many operating room cases does a resident do, and who are those patients?
Why ask it
Treating a whole mouth under general anesthesia is something few dentists get to practice outside a hospital program. The count means little until you know whether the resident is the operator or the assistant, and who books the case, writes the orders and sees the patient afterwards.
What inpatient consults does the dental service get, such as patients sent before heart surgery, a transplant or cancer treatment?
Why ask it
These consults teach you to read a medical chart, talk to a physician and work to the medical team's timetable. If they are why you want a hospital program, ask how many a resident sees in a week.
Can residents admit patients, write orders and prescribe, and what license or permit do I need before the first day?
Why ask it
This depends on the hospital and the state, so ask how it works here and which parts of the paperwork the program handles for you. A missing permit can delay a new resident's start in clinic, so get the deadlines in writing.
What happens the morning after a busy night on call?
Why ask it
Rules on hours differ by hospital and are not always the ones that apply to medical residents. A resident can tell you whether a night with three call-ins is followed by clinic as usual or a late start.
Advanced procedures
What sedation training do residents get: nitrous oxide, oral sedation, IV moderate sedation?
Why ask it
The number that matters is cases completed as the provider, not cases watched. Whether that training satisfies a sedation permit is set by each state board, so check the rules in the state where you plan to work.
Do residents place implants or only restore them, and roughly how many each?
Why ask it
Placing, restoring and planning are three separate experiences, and a program may offer one without the others. Who pays for the parts often decides the number, so ask that, along with whether grafting or guided surgery is included.
How are implant and other sought-after cases shared among the residents?
Why ask it
A program total divided unevenly can leave one resident with ten and another with one. Find out whether cases follow the patient, a rotation list or whoever asks first.
How much surgical extraction work do residents do, impacted third molars included?
Why ask it
Where it happens matters: in your own chair with an attending nearby, or only on an oral surgery rotation. If oral surgery residents take the impactions, ask what is left for you.
How much molar endodontics does a resident do, and is there an endodontist to teach it?
Why ask it
Get a typical count, and whether retreatments are attempted or referred out. A specialist who sits beside you for a difficult canal is worth more than a rotary system nobody shows you how to use.
Which specialists teach in the clinic, and how often is each one there?
Why ask it
The weekly roster by specialty is the useful answer. An endodontist on Wednesdays and a prosthodontist on Fridays is a different education from one generalist checking everything, and it lets you book your hard cases for the right day.
Does the hospital also train oral surgery, pediatric or other specialty residents, and which cases go to them first?
Why ask it
Where specialty programs share the hospital, the difficult root canals, implants and surgical cases can drift toward those residents. It can cut the other way too, with specialty residents teaching you on their service, so have a current resident say whether they have lost a case they wanted.
Residents
If you were applying again, would you rank this program first?
Why ask it
Watch how quickly the answer comes. Then ask what else they considered and what tipped it, because their reasons may not be yours.
What is the weakest part of the year here, and has anyone tried to fix it?
Why ask it
Every program has one: a rotation that is mostly watching, too little fixed prosthodontics, a clinic short of assistants. A resident who names it without lowering their voice, and can say what the director did about it, is describing a place where complaints go somewhere.
What did you do yesterday, hour by hour?
Why ask it
A real day beats a described one: when they arrived, how many patients, which procedures, when the notes were finished. Put it to a second resident too, since rotations make one person's day unlike another's.
What procedure made you nervous at the start that you now do without thinking?
Why ask it
Here is the result of the year in one answer. If they have to search for one, find out how far into the year they are and what they expect to add before it ends.
Do attendings let you work through a hard moment, or take the handpiece?
Why ask it
Both extremes are a problem: faculty who take over teach you to watch, and faculty who are never around leave you guessing. The last time an attending stepped in, and how it went, is the story to get.
How many times were you called in last month, and what for?
Why ask it
The director gives you the schedule, and the resident gives you what the pager did. Split the answer into calls settled by phone and calls that meant driving in.
How did your class split the holidays and the call shifts nobody wanted?
Why ask it
In a class of a handful, one person who dodges call changes the year for everyone. Whether it was settled by a draw, by seniority or by the director tells you how disagreements get resolved the rest of the time.
Is the stipend enough to live on here, and what does rent run near the hospital?
Why ask it
Residents are usually more candid than the director about rent, the commute and whether loan payments fit. The small costs add up too, such as parking, scrubs and loupes, so have them list what they pay for themselves.
What do you wish you had asked on your own interview day?
Why ask it
They tend to answer with whatever surprised them: the drive between sites, the amount of emergency clinic, the paperwork. Whatever it is, take it to the director at your next interview as well.
Pay and next steps
What is the stipend for the coming year, and when is the first payment?
Why ask it
Stipends vary widely, and a program may charge tuition instead of paying one, so confirm the figure for your year even where one is posted. The date matters because moving costs arrive before the first check.
Which benefits come with the position: health insurance, malpractice coverage, vacation, sick days, meals on call?
Why ask it
Two details are easy to miss: the date health coverage begins, and whether the malpractice policy covers only work done inside the program. Vacation is sometimes fixed to certain weeks, so ask who chooses them.
Is there money or time off for continuing education, a conference or licensing fees?
Why ask it
An allowance for one outside course can pay for training the program itself does not offer. Check whether days spent at a course come out of vacation.
Can residents work in a private office on evenings or weekends during the year?
Why ask it
The answer turns on the program's rules, the kind of license or permit you hold and what the malpractice policy covers, so ask about all three. If residents do it, ask whether the call schedule makes it realistic.
Does completing this program count toward a license in this state, or would I still need a clinical exam?
Why ask it
Licensing boards differ on whether a residency year can stand in for a clinical exam, and the rules change. Treat the program's answer as a starting point and confirm with the board of every state you might practice in.
Where have the last few classes gone: private practice, specialty programs, hospital dentistry, public health, a second year?
Why ask it
With classes this small, people tell you more than percentages, since three years of graduates is a short list. If a specialty is on your mind, the useful figures are how many applied and how many got a place.
How do you help residents who are applying to specialty programs or looking for an associate job during the year?
Why ask it
Applications and job hunting land in the middle of the working year. Find out whether interview days can be taken without using vacation, and whether the director writes the letters personally.
How are places filled here, through a match or by direct offer, and when will I hear?
Why ask it
The two routes carry different deadlines and different obligations. Before you leave the building, be clear which applies and what accepting an early offer would commit you to.
Could I spend a day in the clinic, or speak with a resident who was not on today's schedule?
Why ask it
An interview day shows a program at its tidiest. A resident reached later by phone, away from the faculty, is the best check on which rotation is weak and whether the case numbers you were given hold up.
Getting straight answers on a GPR interview day
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Who to put each question to
The program director
The director sets the schedule, chooses the faculty and knows what the accrediting body last said. Take the questions about how the year is divided, what is changing and where graduates went to this conversation. Directors describe the program as it was designed, so anything about how a day really runs is worth checking with a resident afterwards.
Attendings and specialists
Faculty who cover the clinic floor can tell you how they teach and how much they let a resident do. Ask a specialist attending what a GPR resident is doing with them by the end of the year. One concrete case from them tells you more than the list of specialties on the website.
Current residents
Residents are living the year you are choosing, and many programs give you time with them without faculty in the room. Save the Residents group for that time, along with anything about call, case counts or supervision that the director answered from the schedule. If the only resident you meet never leaves the director's side, ask for another one's email address.
The coordinator
Contract dates, benefits, permits, parking and onboarding paperwork usually sit with the program coordinator. A short email after the interview often gets a clearer answer than five minutes taken from the director's hour, and it leaves you with the answer in writing.
Homework that sharpens the questions
Decide what the year is for
A resident heading for private practice wants chair time, crowns, endodontics and speed. One aiming at a specialty wants exposure, letters and a director who picks up the phone. One drawn to hospital dentistry wants operating room cases and medically complex patients. Settle your own version first, then choose the ten questions that test for it.
Read what the program has published
Many programs post the rotation list, the number of positions and the stipend. Read them the night before and use the interview to build on them: 'the site lists a month of anesthesia, so what do residents do during it?' gets a far better answer than asking whether there is an anesthesia rotation. A posted figure is still worth confirming for your own year, since stipends and class sizes change.
Know the GPR and AEGD difference in outline
In broad terms a GPR is based in a hospital and includes medical rotations and call, and an AEGD is more often based in a dental school or community clinic with more of the week in the chair. Individual programs blur that line in both directions, which is why the difference is worth asking about at each interview and not assuming from the name.
Plan for a video interview
On a video interview there is no tour and no hallway, so ask for what you would have seen: a walk-through of the operatories, a separate call with residents, a look at the on-call room. Ask how residents get between the clinic and the hospital, since a map will not tell you.
Asking so the answers can be compared
Ask for counts and calendars
'Lots of implants' and 'plenty of surgery' mean different things in different buildings. Ask for a number per resident, a number of weeks, or last month's call schedule. Nobody expects an exact figure, and a rough one is still something you can set beside another program's.
Put one question to two people
Pick a question about call or case numbers and ask both the director and a resident. Small differences are normal. A large gap is worth one polite follow-up, and it tells you whose account to lean on when you decide.
Leave the stipend for late in the day
Stipend and benefits are fair questions and directors expect them. They land better once you have shown interest in the training, and the details are often on paper anyway. With residents, cost of living can come up at any point.
Do not try to ask everything
You may get ten minutes with each person. Take three or four questions into each conversation, starting with the one whose answer could move the program up or down your list.
After the interview, before you rank
Write the numbers down the same evening
After three interviews the programs run together. Keep one page per program with the same lines on each: patients per day, weeks off service, call nights, implants placed, sedation cases, stipend. Fill it in before you go to sleep.
Check anything that depends on a board or a state
Licensure, sedation permits and what a resident permit allows are set by state boards and hospitals, not by the program. Where your plans depend on one of them, read the board's own rules or call it. A program can be entirely sincere and still be describing last year's rule.
Weigh the residents' mood
Tired is normal in a residency. What to look for is whether the residents seem to like one another, speak freely and can name what they have learned. A class that goes quiet when asked what it would change is telling you something too.
Send a short thank-you with one real question
A brief note to the director and the coordinator is courteous and keeps a line open. If something was left unanswered, ask it there, plainly. Programs differ on how much contact they allow before offers or a match, so ask on the day what their practice is.