Case Study: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Preparing Biomedical Engineers for Residency

Rensselaer’s Department of Biomedical Engineering is focused on training students to become leaders in healthcare technology.

As students prepare to apply for clinical residency programs, mastering the interview process is as essential as any lab work.

Recreating Clinical Pressure in a Virtual Space

The department needed a virtual environment that could simulate the structure and tension of real residency interview days.

Static calls couldn’t recreate the complexity or realism of moving between multiple interviews, managing nerves, or adjusting responses on the fly.

Welcome Lobby

Gatherly as a Residency Sandbox

By leveraging dynamic room transitions and custom layouts, Gatherly allowed organizers to build a full mock residency simulation.

Students flowed from room to room, just like they would on interview day, each session run by a different faculty member or guest evaluator.

Faculty appreciated being able to use side rooms for debriefs and private chats, while students gained experience navigating formal interviews in a structure that felt natural.

The setup mimicked real-life scenarios, with enough flexibility to customize for specialties and candidate experience levels.

Result

Confidence, Feedback, and ReadinessStudents completed the simulation with improved self-awareness and strategic insight into how they interview.

Faculty noted stronger performance in real residency interviews after this event, highlighting how Gatherly made a lasting impact through its uniquely immersive environment.