doctor asked me to write my own letter of recommendation!

[cabrillo]

I asked this particular doctor to write me a letter of recommendation and he told me to write it and that he will sign it and correct it just in case anything is wrong. the reason why he asked me to write it is because he has 3 private offices to take care of and his time is very limited. I have known this doctor since we were children but he is more contemporary with my brother. It is hard for me to write my own letter of recommendation. is there any website that can teach me how to do it properly? any samples on the web? if I have this opportunity I would like to take advantage of it, what do you guys think? is this ok? any comments will be greatly appreciated.

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[GiantGiantsFan]

do a search, there are a lot of previous posts on this. i was once asked by a professor to write my own recommendation, but i declined and asked someone else, because I have no idea how to write a good letter of recommendation, even for myself!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Modesty is not one of my qualities, even-so it is my belief that the best person to toot your own horn is yourself. You know better than anyone else what your personal accomplishments are, and I personally think that you can give yourself an edge in this respect.

In my profession, I ask my subordinates to write their own evaluations and to make them sickeningly trumped up. I take their product and whittle it down with my own observations and come up with a damn good evaluation that covers all the aspects of their character and proficiencies.

In short, I'm sure that there are things that you did when no one else was looking that were highly positive and you should get credit for it!

Now go out there, and write yourself an outstanding recommendation letter! 🙂

What Mr. Adventure recommends: Steer clear of generic statements such as "Great worker with lots of potential" and focus more on quatifiable material such as "proved his, her-self to be extremely focused and attentive to detail by ensuring that X amount of patients recieved X care." In other words, qualify all of your accomplishments with specific examples.

On another note, I'm sure this has been covered before with great input from more qualified SDN'ers than me...

Good Luck!!

 

[dopaminophile]

This is extremely common. If you're not comfortable writing the letter yourself, don't, but keep in mind that you're passing up a good recommendation from someone that probably knows you well. There are websites that teach people how to write good rec letters, so just do a quick googling and you'll get some good advice. Hopefully, your recommender will edit the letter some.

 

[63768]

talk about what you've done and talk about yourself in a good light. don't go all over the place but also talk about yourself as a person, how mature you are, your dedication to the field of medicine, etc. basically do what the adcoms want to see.

if it's a lie, and your doc doesn't see it and signs it? his problem not yours. i'm not advocating lying but i'm saying that telling the truth in a convenient way and saying things that adcoms will see and like is valid.

 

[Zuras]

They really need to start making this a crime.

 

[masterMood]

no, no they don't.

 

[Zuras]

no, no they don't.

I recall that you are supposed to not even see/open your LOR. How in the world can one justify penning it themselves, then?

 

[g3pro]

I recall that you are supposed to not even see/open your LOR.

I have no idea where you got that idea from. Ignorance is bliss, I guess....

 

[crazy_cavalier]

I asked this particular doctor to write me a letter of recommendation and he told me to write it and that he will sign it and correct it just in case anything is wrong. the reason why he asked me to write it is because he has 3 private offices to take care of and his time is very limited. I have known this doctor since we were children but he is more contemporary with my brother. It is hard for me to write my own letter of recommendation. is there any website that can teach me how to do it properly? any samples on the web? if I have this opportunity I would like to take advantage of it, what do you guys think? is this ok? any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Ah yes, a reference letter written on behalf of you by none other than yourself. Hahaha. Anyway, I would say it's unethical to claim that letter as "confidential" if you wrote it yourself, so depending on how scrupulous you are you'll have an interesting experience submitting that one...

 

[Scrub MD]

I recall that you are supposed to not even see/open your LOR. How in the world can one justify penning it themselves, then?

I had to sign something saying I agreed to not see my LOR's.

 

[greendot]

Ah yes, a reference letter written on behalf of you by none other than yourself. Hahaha. Anyway, I would say it's unethical to claim that letter as "confidential" if you wrote it yourself, so depending on how scrupulous you are you'll have an interesting experience submitting that one...

Not if you don't see the final draft ... you could legitimately argue that you haven't seen the letter, as you are giving your recommender something to start with.

I had to write my own letter of rec. from a doctor I'm working with, and though it was very difficult (about 6 hours for one page) because I had to think of concrete examples that he would have observed that demonstrate my ability, I now have a kicka$$ letter from an MD. Definitely worth the pain.

 

[blue2000]

Not if you don't see the final draft ... you could legitimately argue that you haven't seen the letter, as you are giving your recommender something to start with.

I had to write my own letter of rec. from a doctor I'm working with, and though it was very difficult (about 6 hours for one page) because I had to think of concrete examples that he would have observed that demonstrate my ability, I now have a kicka$$ letter from an MD. Definitely worth the pain.

If you look at the language of most waivers it states that you "waive the right" to see you letter. Most of the things you sign don't state whether you did or did not see the letter it's that you are willing to have the letter written without reading it. If someone wants to show you a letter that they have written about you, you can see it, you just can't demand to see it.

 

[lounatic]

the letter of the waiver may not necessarily explicitly represent the spirit of the waiver. the idea is that an LOR will be more honest if you can't demand to see it at a later date. it's up to you to decide what's right...but i'm sure i'm not alone in thinking that it's rather deceptive to submit something from a confidential LOR service (or your school's LOR service, same thing) that you've written....
that doc must be really excited about helping you get into med school if he's too busy to even write the letter himself....nobody's too busy to do something they actually want to do...
anyway, do what you want -- hopefully when you face a moral challenge that's actually important, you put a little more thought into what's right and what's shady.....

 

[Shredder]

I asked this particular doctor to write me a letter of recommendation and he told me to write it and that he will sign it and correct it just in case anything is wrong. the reason why he asked me to write it is because he has 3 private offices to take care of and his time is very limited. I have known this doctor since we were children but he is more contemporary with my brother. It is hard for me to write my own letter of recommendation. is there any website that can teach me how to do it properly? any samples on the web? if I have this opportunity I would like to take advantage of it, what do you guys think? is this ok? any comments will be greatly appreciated.

this is a common occurrence. there are lots of websites on how to do it.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

To the OP: Keep in mind that everything you include in the recommendation must be relevant to the type of work that you did with him. Did you help him with research, or was this a shadowing experience? If it was a shadowing experience I think it is very difficult to write meaningful statements that reflect on your aptitude for med school. But if you write the letter and it only reinforces your application, i.e. mention other non-doctoring activities, GPA/MCAT, and things unrelated to your work with the doctor, it will seem weak. But if you have specific details you can talk about, you'll be set.

 

[Sundarban1]

I would get another reference. Unless he's the chair of cardiothoractic surgery at the top hospital in the country, you could find a better reference who actually knows and cares about you as a person.

 

[45408]

I recall that you are supposed to not even see/open your LOR. How in the world can one justify penning it themselves, then?

There's no such requirement. It's generally preferable if you haven't seen them, because then an evaluator doesn't have to worry about how you're going to interpret the letter.

 

[hardy]

the letter of the waiver may not necessarily explicitly represent the spirit of the waiver. the idea is that an LOR will be more honest if you can't demand to see it at a later date.

uhm, the waiver does not have a spirit. It is a legal document where you give up your right to read the letter in your file. A legal document does not have an intended meaning that is not written down. It does not say anything about getting a copy from the letter writer or having written the letter yourself. It is a rather common that letter writers give you a copy to look at, happened to me in three cases.

 

[cabrillo]

Ah yes, a reference letter written on behalf of you by none other than yourself. Hahaha. Anyway, I would say it's unethical to claim that letter as "confidential" if you wrote it yourself, so depending on how scrupulous you are you'll have an interesting experience submitting that one...

somebody told me this "Ghostwriting letters like this is very commonplace.....at least in the multiple business/government sectors I've been in. Senior management is often too busy to write letters and know the specifics of your education, etc. A draft is provided to them....they tweak it....and send it in under their signature. I can assure you people like the President of the United States and the CEO of General Electric are not personally writing all the correspondence that leaves their office under their signature". I sometimes wonder if you were given the same opportunity if you would think the same way. I think not since you are so politically correct and you have never done anything that seems unethical but it really isnt if you look at the fact that I am submitting the letter and he is going to change and approve it to be send or not. Just wonder why people sometimes are so anal. 😀

 

[hardy]

Just wonder why people sometimes are so anal. 😀

Too many ethics classes