Shadowing LOR

[Premedgirl27]

I have been shadowing an ER doctor (long term) who is a professor at UCSF. I was planning on asking him for a LOR but I was reading the forums and most people are saying it is seen as fluff and not that important.

I will have other letters too but what are your thoughts on how a LOR from this doctor would look?

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[The Knife & Gun Club]

Not bad but not very helpful

esprcially at a school like UCSF that is pulling in super star students it's particularly unhelpful. Everyone at these schools have glowing physician reviews

 

[Catalystik]

I have been shadowing an ER doctor (long term) who is a professor at UCSF. I was planning on asking him for a LOR but I was reading the forums and most people are saying it is seen as fluff and not that important.

I will have other letters too but what are your thoughts on how a LOR from this doctor would look?

A few MD schools, many DO schools, and some premedical committees ask for a shadowing letter. It doesn't hurt to have one in the bag in case it's called for.

 

[strictlyanon]

Just do it

 

[mimelim]

I have been shadowing an ER doctor (long term) who is a professor at UCSF. I was planning on asking him for a LOR but I was reading the forums and most people are saying it is seen as fluff and not that important.

I will have other letters too but what are your thoughts on how a LOR from this doctor would look?

A few MD schools, many DO schools, and some premedical committees ask for a shadowing letter. It doesn't hurt to have one in the bag in case it's called for.

Just do it

Outside of those few MD schools and DO schools, it is garbage and ignored entirely. It indirectly harms you because LOR are an opportunity for other people to brag about you and you are essentially wasting a letter.

 

[baratheonfire]

A few MD schools, many DO schools, and some premedical committees ask for a shadowing letter. It doesn't hurt to have one in the bag in case it's called for.

Outside of those few MD schools and DO schools, it is garbage and ignored entirely. It indirectly harms you because LOR are an opportunity for other people to brag about you and you are essentially wasting a letter.

Which physician do I trust
I'm literally dying right now

 

[mimelim]

Which physician do I trust
I'm literally dying right now

If you have no other options, use it. Plenty of people have gotten into medical school with 'do nothing' LOR. If you can get better letter, you should.

 

[gyngyn]

In order (from harmful to useless):
1. A Letter of Evaluation from your Mom, extra demerits for using her unmarried name and not revealing her relationship.
2. An LOE from a more distant family member (ditto above).
3. A family friend (who may or may not have let you shadow).
4. Your own physician.
5. A spiritual advisor (unless specifically requested).
6. A shadowing LOE. What can he say about you? "Johnny stayed completely out of my way and maintained a pleasantly neutral demeanor throughout his time with me."
7. A patient letter (vulnerable population/implications of duress).
8. An elected official.

If any given school actually asks for one of these, then by all means let them have it.

 

[WedgeDawg]

I think Catalystik is saying (and please correct me if I'm wrong) get the letter and hold onto it just in case you end up needing it for a school or two, but otherwise don't use it, which is in accordance with what mimelim is saying (don't use it if you can get a better letter that might actually be helpful). I don't think there is a disagreement between the two pieces of advice.

 

[Catalystik]

I don't think there is a disagreement between the two pieces of advice.

Neither did I.

 

[familyaerospace]

My school, and a few other schools I applied to, asked for a physician letter, so get the letter. The one who wrote for me this round, I had shadowed for 225 hours.

 

[mimelim]

Neither did I.

 

[Doug Underhill]

Make sure you have strong LORs. If the school requires a physician LOR (generally DO programs), be sure to have one. Not meeting the LOR requirements is an easy path towards pre-interview rejection. Do not assume "oh, they'll make an exception for me because I'm a good enough applicant to warrant one and the LORs I have are close enough".

 

[Premedgirl27]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Premedgirl27]

Make sure you have strong LORs. If the school requires a physician LOR (generally DO programs), be sure to have one. Not meeting the LOR requirements is an easy path towards pre-interview rejection. Do not assume "oh, they'll make an exception for me because I'm a good enough applicant to warrant one and the LORs I have are close enough".

I have all of the typical required letters, was just wondering if a shadowing LOR would look good or not

 

[Doug Underhill]

Generally, in the category of "non-science professor LORs", the doctrine on SDN is that they are weaker than LORs from humanities professors or supervisors of any type, so use those in place of it if possible.

 

[chemist_acs]

I'm applying this cycle and didn't read the info about LOR from dr you shadowed until after I applied. So I had 4 LORs and one of them was from a physician I shadowed. I currently have 5 acceptances. I'm not telling you to ignore the advice given here because these guys are great. Just telling you my experience.

 

[gyngyn]

I have all of the typical required letters, was just wondering if a shadowing LOR would look good or not

Folks get in every day with fluff letters from shadowing. Nobody likes reading gratuitous filler, though.

 

[Premedgirl27]

Thank you!

 

[bumblebee611]

I'm applying this cycle and didn't read the info about LOR from dr you shadowed until after I applied. So I had 4 LORs and one of them was from a physician I shadowed. I currently have 5 acceptances. I'm not telling you to ignore the advice given here because these guys are great. Just telling you my experience.

I had a much better cycle than I would have expected or that many folks on SDN would have predicted for me -- I am very happy with how it went, and I used a shadowing letter as well. I can understand the reasoning for why it is generally useless and for most people it is much better to substitute a letter from someone who can attest to the quality of your WORK (whether at a job or schoolwork), but the physician who wrote my letter let me see it. It was very positive and managed to be quite different from the imagined shadowing letter that typically gets pooh-poohed around here. It seems to me that if you just have a typical shadowing experience where you follow someone around and all they can say is that you were polite and attentive when you followed them around, of course that's not terribly compelling. But if you have the kind of relationship with the physician where they might be able to say something more substantial about your abilities, I don't see why it's necessarily so bad.