26 Smart Questions to Ask OB/GYN Programs
Asking sharp questions is half the interview. It signals seriousness, helps you rank programs accurately, and — practically — the residents' answers to these questions will tell you more than any website. Bring 8–10 per interview day; you'll use 3–5 per session. The full list of 26 below is organized the way the guide organizes them: clinical training, call and wellness, mentorship and career, culture, and outcomes.
Clinical training & volume
- What's your annual delivery volume, and how is it distributed across the hospitals?
- What are your C-section rates, and is there active work to keep them appropriate?
- What do chief residents' GYN surgical numbers look like — total hysterectomies, laparoscopic vs. vaginal vs. robotic?
- How much robotic surgery exposure do residents get, and is there a formal robotics curriculum?
- What's the high-risk OB exposure like — do you have MFM fellows, and how does that affect resident autonomy?
- How are the subspecialty rotations structured (REI, gyn onc, MFM, urogynecology), and do residents get real operative roles on them?
- Is there a resident continuity clinic, and how is it protected from inpatient demands?
Call, schedule & wellness
- What does the call structure look like — night float, 24-hour call, how frequent?
- How has the call schedule changed in the last few years based on resident feedback?
- What happens after a traumatic outcome — is there structured debriefing or support?
- How do residents actually spend their golden weekends — do people recover, or is everyone moonlighting to survive?
Mentorship, fellowship & career
- What's your fellowship match been like over the last three years?
- If I'm considering fellowship, what does mentorship for that look like — research support, elective time, application guidance?
- For residents going into generalist practice, how does the program prepare them for that transition?
- Is there formal mentorship pairing, or does it happen organically?
- What QI or research opportunities exist, and do residents get protected time for them?
Culture & people
- What's the relationship like between residents and the L&D nursing staff?
- How would you describe the culture among the residents in one sentence?
- Can you tell me about a time the program changed something because residents asked?
- What's the attending teaching style on the labor floor — hands-on or hands-off?
- How diverse is your patient population, and how does the program train residents to care for patients across differences in language, culture, and background?
Outcomes & practicalities
- What are your board pass rates over the last few years?
- Where do your graduates end up — geography, practice type?
- What's the cost of living like here on a resident salary, realistically?
- Is moonlighting allowed, and do residents do it?
- What's one thing you wish you'd known about this program before you ranked it?
How to use these
Don't rapid-fire them like a checklist. Pick the ones you genuinely care about, ask follow-ups, and react to the answers. The best interview conversations happen when a resident says something surprising and you say, "Tell me more about that." Also — take notes after each interview day. After ten interviews, every program blurs together. Write down what each resident said within an hour.
A few of these questions do double duty as culture tests. Question 19 — "Can you tell me about a time the program changed something because residents asked?" — is a quiet one: strong programs will have an answer ready. Question 17, about the resident–nursing relationship, tells you whether the program lives the teamwork it claims to value — the same teamwork the labor-floor question will test in you. And question 10, about what happens after a traumatic outcome, is the wellness question that shows maturity rather than weakness — the guide's work-life balance chapter pairs it with two more you can ask about support after difficult outcomes.
When they ask "what questions do you have for us?" and you say "I think you've covered everything" — that reads as disinterest. Always have questions. Having none is one of the red flags that get OB/GYN applicants quietly screened out.
The full question list, with the guide's notes on which questions to ask faculty versus residents and how to adapt them to academic versus community programs, is in the OB/GYN Interview Guide, Extended Edition, on Amazon.