A lot of MD internal medicine programs require a chair letter. Anyone have any experience as a DO acquiring one of these? Seems like it could be difficult coming from most DO schools that aren't associated with major hospitals and given that its hard to schedule away rotations at those places early fourth year
IM Chair Letter
- Thread starter DrHankMD
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MS4 here who applied/interviewed at all ACGME IM programs this year...
Despite not having an attached teaching hospital with an IM chair, all DO school's should still have a faculty member who is designated as the Chair of Internal Medicine. Many IM programs require a Chair's letter so that person should already be familiar with what it entails.
Call or email whoever your school has designated as the Chair of IM. Tell them that you're applying to internal medicine programs, and that some of the programs require a Chair letter. They will likely ask you to send them your personal statement and perhaps sign a form to sign that lets them see what your grades were. They may +/- ask you why you want to go into IM, what your career plans are, etc. The letter from your home institution's IM Chair seems more like a formality than anything else.
My advice to DO's interested in IM is to try to do an away rotation early in (July/Aug/Sept) at a big name place where you can get a letter either from a PD, a department chair, or some other big name in the field. These letters can go quite far.
Despite not having an attached teaching hospital with an IM chair, all DO school's should still have a faculty member who is designated as the Chair of Internal Medicine. Many IM programs require a Chair's letter so that person should already be familiar with what it entails.
Call or email whoever your school has designated as the Chair of IM. Tell them that you're applying to internal medicine programs, and that some of the programs require a Chair letter. They will likely ask you to send them your personal statement and perhaps sign a form to sign that lets them see what your grades were. They may +/- ask you why you want to go into IM, what your career plans are, etc. The letter from your home institution's IM Chair seems more like a formality than anything else.
My advice to DO's interested in IM is to try to do an away rotation early in (July/Aug/Sept) at a big name place where you can get a letter either from a PD, a department chair, or some other big name in the field. These letters can go quite far.
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Ditto. There is somebody in the IM department of your osteopathic institution who is a designated chair of IM or who can otherwise vouch that they represent the IM department at your school. Talk to this person and go from there. I had to do this back in the day, and things worked out OK.
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Wait, some of these schools don't have a Department of Internal Medicine? How is that possible?
The chair's letter is essentially the department's evaluation of your performance on IM, with information gleaned from your evaluations and your shelf score during your IM rotation. Even if you rotated somewhere other than your main campus, your chair (or their designee) should still have access to the information necessary to write a chair letter.
The chair's letter is essentially the department's evaluation of your performance on IM, with information gleaned from your evaluations and your shelf score during your IM rotation. Even if you rotated somewhere other than your main campus, your chair (or their designee) should still have access to the information necessary to write a chair letter.
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All schools are affiliated with OPTIs, and all OPTIs have IM programs. So technically all have IM departments affiliated with the schools. People were more or less saying that there isn't usually one main academic IM program like there are at most MD schools.
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Right now I have a connection with an APD in the endocrinology department of IM. Would getting a LOR from him down road also make a good impact applying ACGME IM or would it not do as much because it's a subspecialty?
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Each DO schools should have a designated IM Chair. Try searching your school's website or calling your Medical Education office and asking who the chair of Internal Medicine is.
For examples (these are random schools that I picked)
KCUMB - Kevin Hubbard, DO
https://www.kcumb.edu/departments/bio/?employeeId=362
KCOM/ATSU - Lawrence W. Ciesemier, DO
http://www.atsu.edu/kcom/faculty_staff/bios/Ciesemier-L-Bio.htm
PCOM Philly campus - Dr David Loughran, DO
http://www.pcom.edu/Department_Web_...icin/David_Loughran_DO/david_loughran_do.html
COMP/Western - Emmanuel Katsaros, DO
http://www.westernu.edu/stp/bios.php?bio=ekatsaros
Can't hurt. Probably won't be helpful since most applicants will have faculty LORs, some serving in some capacity in residency administration. If that person can't attest to your clinical ability (when you're a medical student on rotations), then not helpful at all.
For examples (these are random schools that I picked)
KCUMB - Kevin Hubbard, DO
https://www.kcumb.edu/departments/bio/?employeeId=362
KCOM/ATSU - Lawrence W. Ciesemier, DO
http://www.atsu.edu/kcom/faculty_staff/bios/Ciesemier-L-Bio.htm
PCOM Philly campus - Dr David Loughran, DO
http://www.pcom.edu/Department_Web_...icin/David_Loughran_DO/david_loughran_do.html
COMP/Western - Emmanuel Katsaros, DO
http://www.westernu.edu/stp/bios.php?bio=ekatsaros
Can't hurt. Probably won't be helpful since most applicants will have faculty LORs, some serving in some capacity in residency administration. If that person can't attest to your clinical ability (when you're a medical student on rotations), then not helpful at all.
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What I was thinking was to do an away oration at the place I know the APD. I don't know if it's worth it though because it's at Ucsd.
I'm sure I'll find other people through the next few years. The KCUMB/KCU IM chair is someone I'll def look to meeting soon.
I have one silly question...few programs I need to apply need a IM Chair letter. On my residency application (ERAS) for 2016, they want to specify the author based on the following below:
1. This LoR Author is a Department Chair where I completed my clerkship training. Group departmental letters must be signed by the team composing the letter.
2. None of the above.
My school is in ATSU-Kirksville, but I did the clerkship training in Arizona. Our school has clinical sites outside the main campus. So, I haven't worked with a Chair directly. Can I still choose the first option even though I haven't completed my clerkship training at Missouri on-site with him, directly? What is your thought on this? Still choose #1 on the option?
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I am wondering about the same thing. I didn't rotate with my school's Chair, so I'm wondering if I could choose option 1 when assigning the letter to fulfill the Chair letter requirement for some residency programs.
Can anyone give me some insight?
I chose option #1 and no one interrogated me about it. So, you should be fine.
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Thank you. I did that too.
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As mentioned above, many IM programs "require" a chair letter because it is a mini-dean's letter. It has nothing to do with "working with the chair", it's usually written by a committee, documents your performance in comparison to other people applying in IM. I think it's a bit of a holdover from the days where the MSPE release was delayed much later. In fact, there are published guidelines about the DoM letter, you can see the short version here: http://www.im.org/p/cm/ld/fid=555 or the longer, published version here: http://www.im.org/d/do/3126
All that said, this really applies to MD candidates only. Although lots of DO candidates submit a "chair" letter, my experience is that they are 100% useless. It appears that DO schools haven't gotten the memo regarding how this is done, and instead we get a form letter, written by the chair, that says nothing useful.
So, as a DO, much more valuable (as mentioned above) is a letter from an allopathic rotation. Although not a requirement, having a letter from a rotation where you were held to the same standards as an MD student is a big plus. And if it's a SubI, it's a huge plus. If it's actually written by a PD or APD that's also a big help, although that can be out of your control and is less important.
Whether or not you label your letter a "chair" letter in ERAS is relatively meaningless. But don't label all of your letters as "chair" letters (that's annoying), and don't label a letter a "chair" letter if the person writing it is the Chair of something that isn't IM.
All that said, this really applies to MD candidates only. Although lots of DO candidates submit a "chair" letter, my experience is that they are 100% useless. It appears that DO schools haven't gotten the memo regarding how this is done, and instead we get a form letter, written by the chair, that says nothing useful.
So, as a DO, much more valuable (as mentioned above) is a letter from an allopathic rotation. Although not a requirement, having a letter from a rotation where you were held to the same standards as an MD student is a big plus. And if it's a SubI, it's a huge plus. If it's actually written by a PD or APD that's also a big help, although that can be out of your control and is less important.
Whether or not you label your letter a "chair" letter in ERAS is relatively meaningless. But don't label all of your letters as "chair" letters (that's annoying), and don't label a letter a "chair" letter if the person writing it is the Chair of something that isn't IM.
