All Surgery LOR?

[Alex57]

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Hey all,
I was wondering, is it better to have your 4 ERAS letters all come from surgeons?
For the 4th slot is it better to have a mediocre letter from a surgeon or an outstanding letter from an unrelated primary care field?

I imagine there are different views on this. I'd like to hear all your opinions. I'm trying to decide what to put in that 4th slot.

Thanks!

-A

 

[Winged Scapula]

In general letters from surgeons are preferred.

As for non-surgical letters, it is okay to have *1* but the conventional wisdom that it is preferred to be from IM, Anesthesia, or an IM subspecialty (like GI). A letter from a MICU attending would be great. FP, Psych, Peds, OB not so much (what do they know about being a surgical resident is the common refrain).

 

[waxedapathetic]

i had 3 from surgery and 1 from an FP. i was very involved in a free clinic managed by the FP department, so i thought a letter from one of the faculty there would support my application (i also mentioned the clinic in my personal statement). ... all this is to say i think FP is OK in some circumstances.

i'm pretty sure 3 strong letters are enough. i dont recall a program asking for more than 3. if that's true, i'd just include 3 strong surgery letters and stop there...

 

[45408]

We were strongly advised to have letters from surgeons, but I did include one letter from the chair of medicine, since he had been my ward attending as a med student, and he was kind of a big deal. I only sent that one to a few of the programs that wanted a fourth letter.

 

[walkmandingo]

I had 3 surgeons write letters and my 4th letter was from the director of our SICU, IM trained (however, our Chair just found out after 5 years that he was IM not surgery trained, so I guess he isn't a typical IM doc)

 

[belle.md]

I had 3 letters from surgeons and my fourth was from my research advisor (a PhD, but also a department chair who has known me for years).

 

[Alex57]

Thanks to everyone who responded! I ended up going with all 4 surgery LOR. Even though my 4th letter was sort of mediocre I think it hasn't hurt me much because I am still receiving interview invites.

It's so nice to get info from people who have been there before.

 

[Medicine16]

Hey all, I had a quick question - how important is the name of the individual writing you a letter of recommendation when applying to a field such as general surgery? Would it better to get a letter from a residency program director, even if he/she doesn't know you as well (but has agreed to write you a decent letter) as opposed to a relatively unknown physician who knows you extremely well and has worked with you one on one many times?

It also seems kind of difficult to me to gauge how strong some one's name actually is. If your LOR writer is a residency program director, does this automatically imply that they have many connections who will look at a letter coming from them in a different light? Or does it mean that they may or may not influence your application in any way, especially if they are from a smaller residency program? Thanks.

 

[navymd]

Surgery letters from PD (essential) and well known senior surgeons are best.
Junior surgery faculty are ok but should not be all of the letters
Non surgery letters may get a look but not a lot of weight and more than one none surgery letter is worrisome.

 

[goooooober]

Actually, I got one letter from a general surgeon, which was okay. But then, I got 3 spectacular letters, one from my mom, one from my dad, and one from my cat, which mostly stated mew and meow in an alternating fashion.

It worked. Who knew (or who mew, should I say)?

 

[DocLan]

Should they preferably be all G-surg vs the surg specialties (ortho, nsurg, ent)?

 

[Medicine16]

Surgery letters from PD (essential) and well known senior surgeons are best.
Junior surgery faculty are ok but should not be all of the letters
Non surgery letters may get a look but not a lot of weight and more than one none surgery letter is worrisome.

Great, thank you for the advice.