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

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