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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on undergraduate medical education with limitation of patient care activities and disruption to medical licensing examinations. In an effort to promote both safety and equity, the emergency medicine (EM) community has recommended no away rotations for EM applicants and entirely virtual interviews during this year’s residency application cycle. These changes affect the components of the EM residency application most highly regarded by program directors – Standardized Letters of Evaluation from EM rotations, board scores, and interactions during the interview. The Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine Application Process Improvement Committee suggests solutions not only for the upcoming year but also to address longstanding difficulties within the process, encouraging residency programs to leverage these challenges as an opportunity for disruptive innovation.

Introduction Motivational interviewing (MI) is a counseling method that utilizes a patient's own motivation to effect personal change. MI has been applied routinely and successfully to managing medical conditions (e.g., substance abuse). Employing MI techniques to engage medical learners (termed motivational advising [MA]) may help them overcome professional and/or personal challenges limiting their career development. Methods Medical educators from four academic medical centers developed a module focused on teaching fellow educators MI theory and techniques for MA using didactic and interactive components. Participants participated in facilitated role-plays to practice MA delivery techniques and observed videos of a traditional advisor-advisee interaction as well as an MA-focused engagement. A postworkshop survey was used to evaluate the workshop. Results In a survey of 48 educators attending the workshop at two medical conferences, over 80% of respondents demonstrated an interest in learning more about MA. Additionally, over 60% indicated that they would seek opportunities to practice and/or implement MA with their advisees. Knowledge of the technical components of MA also increased significantly in pre- and posttest analysis. Discussion This module introducing the concept of MA was well received by medical educators and was viewed as a valuable tool in advising medical learners. The provided components enable replication of this workshop in other settings with or without an expert in MI techniques. Although the workshop has been conducted with physicians involved in medical education, it would be applicable to other health professionals who advise trainees such as nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, or veterinary medicine.