“Must Love Rock Climbing?” Emergency Medicine Applicants’ Hobbies from Two Academic Institutions

Background: Hobbies may be used on the residency application to communicate similarity other members of their desired specialty or uniqueness. Objectives: This study aimed determine most common hobbies among emergency medicine (EM) applicants and whether they differ from reported applicants. Methods: was a two-center retrospective review at large U.S. midwestern academic institutions with 3- 4-year EM program. Data “hobbies interests” field Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) 2015 - 2019 were reviewed. data individually coded by two independent physician coders into 19 defined hobby types. compared plastic surgery psychiatry Results: A total 2675 individual initially identified, strong agreement between raters (κ = 0.92). The commonly listed sports (25.0%), outdoor (19.3%), fitness (9.6%). Sports also frequently surgery. While there several significant differences specialties, these minimal overall. Conclusions: Active appeared prominently for all Less stereotypical hobbies, including literary arts cooking, noted, suggesting that have motivations beyond communicating when listing hobbies.