I am a male and have gotten asked that question a bunch from several different programs. It never seemed to be a negative though in my experience.

Supposedly studies show that being married has a correlation with higher board scores. There's some literature showing that.

However, I doubt that weighs very heavily in anyone's mind.

Sounds like typical conversation to me...I'm male and married, have been asked several times and never felt like it was helping or hurting me to say yes.

While that question may or may not seem benign to some here's what the rules of employment law say:

Employment Interview Laws
Human resources professionals should know which questions cannot be asked during a job interview, but smaller companies without a formal HR department may sometimes inadvertently ask illegal job interview questions. Employment interview laws are very specific and, in general, during a job interview, the candidate should never be asked about age, race, national origin, marital or parental status, or disabilities.

wnl

Thank you, Dr. Levine. That's what I thought.

Anyone have any suggestions on the best way to handle this question? I don't want to appear closed off, but I think it is actually kind of a loaded question (perhaps more for females than males?). The answer shouldn't matter, but why would they ask it unless it did?

I will concede that the question may have different connotations between men and women. I only have one perspective, so if you felt it was done in a negative way that certainly may be the case. I felt that most people asked me about it because they were trying to get a better sense of who I am.

To what Dr. Levine said, I understand that those questions are illegal. The problem with that is that several different forms of those questions are asked through ERAS. For instance, people that are couples matching are asked to put that down on ERAS. This is an indirect way of finding about a relationship status. Age is also a part of the application process through graduation dates etc. Race is asked on ERAS and it also asks where you were born. At that point, the cat is really out of the bag for all of those topics so making it illegal doesn't seem to help all that much.

Grooot (interesting name!) raises a lot of very poignant points of course. Couples matching is asked about not so much to determine relationship status (which of course it does) but to help us as program directors to know that we may need to collaborate with our peers from other departments if we are offering interviews to one half of the couple. Age is unavoidable of course on virtually any application.
All that being said, the specific issue with women is much more sensitive because the "illegal" questions regarding family, child-bearing, etc... are much more specific than they are to men (in general). Programs that have had women routinely are probably less likely to break those rules but those that have not may be more fearful of female residents taking time to have children, etc...
Bottom line is that as a father of 2 daughters and as a program director with 30% women in our program you should be aware that these type of "benign" questions can have significant differences based on the gender of the person being asked.

wnl

Here's my take. It's not like we are hiring you to work at Burger King. I want to get to know you since I will be around you on a constant basis for five years and trust the care of my patients to you. It's called connecting on a human level. 99.9% of the time your interviewer is trying to find some common ground to connect so that they can break down some of the tension. Sometimes its kids, sometimes its fantasy football, etc.. Chill out and try your best to connect as a person. If they didn't want females, they wouldn't have interviewed you.

Bottom line...use your gut. If you feel the need to be personally "closed off" during the interview, the program isn't right for you. The corollary to this is if you are "closed off" during the interview, you are unlikely to be ranked favorably.

Good luck.

I am a female applicant and was asked whether I was married all along the interview trail. Granted, I was wearing my ring, so it was more of an observation and not a question. I completely agree with BoneBlaster on this one. I think this question is an attempt to get to know someone on a more personal level. Usually, the follow-up questions is, "what does your spouse do?" "Where is he from?"

Let's face it, talking about research and your AOA status is not going to reveal your personality. Five years, 80+ hrs/week is a long time. I hope I match at a place where they tried to acquaint themselves with each applicant personally, hopefully, they did their due diligence in finding a group of applicants that I will be happy to be with for the next 5 years.

Also, "Are you married?" "Nope." I think that would end the conversation.

I think maybe its interviewers way to make interviewees be comfortable in behalf of the nervous situation. Going on an interview is scarier than undergoing liposuction.