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[aperolmonkey27]

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[Moko]

Hello all,

I'm shadowing a very nice infectious disease doctor with whom I see patients on Tues/Thurs mornings. This is my first shadowing experience, and I've been learning a lot, but today he threw me a curveball. He asked if I was expecting a LOR out of the experience, to which I said yes––if he's comfortable with that, and he recommended that I do something to impress him so he can write a strong LOR.

This was the first time something like this had come up, but I assume he means like an independent research project or presentation of some kind. Has anyone done anything like this before? Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

Are you primarily applying to MD or DO schools? Very few MD schools require a shadowing letter for application. These letters tend to contain very little substance. Before you jump through hoops to secure this potentially unwanted letter, you should carefully look through the websites of schools you are interested in applying to and make sure that such a letter is actually needed and welcomed. Otherwise, the effort and time used to "impress" this letter writer could be better used for other activities.

As an example, USUHS wants a clinical letter that can be from a physician you shadowed, but this requirement can also be satisfied through many non-shadowing activities as well. UC Davis recommends a clinical letter that can be obtained from a physician or non-physician clinician (leaving room for interpretation).

If you do require a shadowing letter from him, I suspect you can probably get away with showing him one of your prior projects, though it will be important to clarify his expectations. Best of luck.

 

[gyngyn]

Tell him that shadowing is a sufficient gift of his time and a letter is not needed.

 

[JimKimSlim]

Hello all,

I'm shadowing a very nice infectious disease doctor with whom I see patients on Tues/Thurs mornings. This is my first shadowing experience, and I've been learning a lot, but today he threw me a curveball. He asked if I was expecting a LOR out of the experience, to which I said yes––if he's comfortable with that, and he recommended that I do something to impress him so he can write a strong LOR.

This was the first time something like this had come up, but I assume he means like an independent research project or presentation of some kind. Has anyone done anything like this before? Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

This isn’t your 3rd year clinical rotation. No need to impress the attending. The whole point of shadowing is not to get a LoR out of it. Just observe, put yourself in their position, and think if this is something you can do for the rest of your life.

 

[stinkycheeseperson]

if that's you or your name in your pfp i suggest you change it post haste

 

[Tenk]

*student shadowing me*
Me: impress me.
Student: *pulls out Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090*
Me:

 

[deleted1103055]

he recommended that I do something to impress him so he can write a strong LOR.

an ID doc might be impressed if you wrote:

1. an annotated bibliography on a specific pathogen (e.g. MRSA) using scholarly data no older than 5 years on a specific outcome (e.g. skin/soft tissue infections)
2. a powerpoint presentation detailing the 5 year trend of your hospital antibiogram
3. a summary of ABX that appear to be failing in your community based on the top 3 area hospitals antiobiograms. In a major city like Miami, the county hospital antibiogram would reflect a different susceptibility report of ABX to Gram -/+ bacteria (e.g. MRSA/Clindamycin vs Rifampin vs TMP/SMX) compared the local hospital that caters to affluent patients

The first item will require time reviewing literature on pubmed, the 2nd item will require approaching the hospital microbiologist and requesting copies to their hospital's most recent 5 years of antibiograms, the 3rd item you can acquire by visiting each of the hospitals website.

Few physicians consult antibiograms to the consternation of hospital microbiologists. An ID doc would be shocked if you know what they were, consulted their hospital's microbiologist about these instruments for the past 5 years and showed trends therein, and better still, showed what ABX are of concern based on specific pathogens (e.g. E. coli, MRSA, etc) at the top 3 area hospitals.