Dean and Department Chair are the same person... Letters?

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ashik33

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I'm applying to IM. A lot of programs ask for Department Chair's LOR. The dean of my medical school himself is the Chair of Internal Medicine. What to do in this condition? Should I have a separate Dean's letter (MSPE) and LOR written by the same person? Do I ask another professor to write the LOR? Or a single letter would suffice? Thanks.
 
The Dean's letter isn't exactly what you think. It's more of a 'story form' of your med school career with a few (hopefully) glowing comments thrown in. If you read yours you'll understand...it almost reads in a formulaic sort of way...at least ones from my school did.

Thus it isn't odd to have both from the same person.
 
The MSPE (Dean's Letter) isn't really a LOR and is rarely actually written by the Dean. Get the Chief's letter and let the MSPE play out however it does at your school. My school had 8 or 10 faculty (mostly Dept. Chairs/Division Chiefs/Residency PDs/aPDs) that students were assigned to to do their MSPE. Yours will likely do something similar.
 
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