i wanted to go into a speciality, but recently changed my mind.
all my LORs are geared towards the original speciality,
there is no way for me to do another elective in what i want to do,
what can I do if i only have 1 LOR for this speciality and no elective?
Without more specifics, such as where you are in your training and what specialities you are talking about, it could be difficult to give a useful answer. But here's my take:
1) Research in your newly chosen speciality. You said you are not able to do an elective, but maybe you can arrange to do some clinical or basic science research (depending on how much time you are willing to commit to the process) in either the speciality you currently want to pursue or a related field.
2) Take a year off to work with a person in your desired speciality (either doing research or some other type of work, depending on what they do). For example, if you want to do say... surgery, but for whatever reason can't do a clinical elective, you may try to find a surgeon who does international work and try to work on such a project with them.
3) Do an elective in another speciality that may get you a usable LOR. For example, ophthalmology may only want ophtho letters but a field like EM may look favorably on letters from other specialities as well (although you do need at least 1 SLOR, but that's another story).
4) Buff your CV in another way. Things like getting an MPH, MBA, or doing some international work, or becoming an ACLS instructor, or whatever.
Once again, the options you have are highly dependent on where you are in your training (3rd year/4th year, graduated, FMG) and what you want to pursue. You might get more useful responses if you share a bit more. Hope this is at least somewhat useful.
