CORD SLOR Question

[pianoman90]

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So I am a third year osteopathic student and I want to apply for EM residencies next year. I am looking at DO residencies right now and several of them "highly recommend" SLORs (CORD) instead of a personal letter of rec. I have been getting a personal LOR from each of my rotations so far and right now I am doing peds ER (ambulatory peds rotation) at a non-EM residency hospital. Since our school does not give us our core EM rotation until 4th year, I thought it would be good to get a SLOR from the attending here.

Since there is no EM residency at this particular hospital, what will this attending put under #2 in the global assessment "how highly would you estimate the candidate will reside on your match list?" Do I just have them forward the letter to my school's ERAS office like a regular LOR? Also is it normal for student to waive their rights to see the SLOR or is it more common to check it out before submitting it? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[otacon88]

I'm pretty sure SLORs can only be written by letter writers from an accredited EM residency...so I doubt you can even get a SLOR from your peds EM rotation

 

[pianoman90]

That's what I thought at first, but I called the CORD headquarters and the woman there told me that it didn't have to be at a residency hospital, as long as that physician was EM faculty for the rotation I am doing. Would it be better to just get a personal letter from this rotation and get the SLOR starting next July during my core EM rotation (which has an EM residency)?

 

[pianoman511]

I think that a SLOR from a faculty member at a residency program would have more weight than a non-academic program, especially if you can get it from a program director. If you look at the SLOR itself and the CORD website, they actually recommend having either the PD or medical student director fill it out because some of the questions require knowledge about the rotation grading. Plus, because the EM residency community is relatively close, most of the PDs know each other and can give your letter more weight if they know another PD wrote you a letter.

 

[MSmentor018]

I'm pretty sure SLORs can only be written by letter writers from an accredited EM residency...so I doubt you can even get a SLOR from your peds EM rotation

any physician can download the SLOR and write you one but when we review SLORs not affiliated with a residency training program....it doesn't hold much weight. besides saying "yes you did good", the rest of the SLOR gives the reader how valuable you are, if they would even have you, how you'd do in EM..etc. a lot of read between the lines kinda thing. plus academics and community docs are different. if the only thing we know about you is a SLOR, then we like knowing it's written by someone 1. we know and trust their judgement 2. from academics since that's what you're entering 3. the SLOR helps us read the same language and the "drift" the writer is sending out.
especially being a DO crossing into MD, make sure you have really strong ones. go for the academics. good luck!