For those of us who have not picked a speciality yet...

[Leukocyte]

---

Members do not see this ad.

...Do we need Letters of Reccomendations in each and every potential speciality that we are interested in?

For example: I am debating between:

-Pediatrics
-Ob/Gyn
-General Surgery
-Pathology

I currently have 3 letters

- One from General Surgery
- One from Psychiatry.
- One from Oncology (IM)

Do I also need a letter from Pediatrics, Ob/Gyn, and Pathology?

Man, that would really suck, because I only have 7 weeks of free electives left. 🙁

Any advise

THANK YOU. 🙂

 

[GeneGoddess]

You will need at least one letter from someone in your "chosen" specialty. So, if you settle on Pedi, Path, or OB/Gyn, you'll need a letter from someone in that specialty. Depending on the place you apply, some ask for a letter from the Chair of the Department (Pedi, Path, etc) and some ask for a letter from one of your "core" rotations (Duke and UNC Pedi require a LOR from an attending on your core Pedi rotation).

 

[Leukocyte]

You will need at least one letter from someone in your "chosen" specialty.

That's what I was dreading. Man, even Pediatrics needs its own letter?!

Seems like I have some more "brown nosing" to do.

Thank you very much for your contribution Goddess! 🙂

 

[GeneGoddess]

If it makes you feel any better, I had some "weird" letters for Pedi: the head of my MD/PhD program (to talk about my research, etc), a medical geneticist (who is in the Pedi dept.), and a child psychiatrist. I ended up getting a letter from an attending on a fourth year Pedi elective added later. And I had quite a few people mention how nice it was that a research-geek like me had a warm/fuzzy/personal letter from a psychiatrist. Path might not care about something like that, but Pedi sure did.

All you need is ONE... And I'd concentrate on picking your specialty first. Good luck!

 

[LADoc00]

From a lifestyle, cash and even personal happiness perspective, I would look into Rads and Rad Onc. I cant stress this enough.

 

[AJM]

You really shouldn't be asking for letters until you decide on your specialty. Once you decide which specialty you want to do, you can inform your letter writers, give them your CV and a draft of your personal statement, and then they will be able to write you a much stronger letter of support.

For all you know, your letter writers in surgery, psych, and IM all wrote you letters thinking you were planning on applying to their respective specialties. That will make those letters useless if you decide on a different specialty (ex: you don't want to apply to peds with a letter of support saying that you'd be a great surgeon). In addition, by asking before you know your specialty, you're at risk of pissing off your letter writers when they find out that you chose a different specialty after they already did you a favor and wrote you a LOR for their own specialty (making their efforts wasted).

Be patient, and concentrate on choosing your specialty first.

 

[VentdependenT]

I don't think you need anything special to match into OB or PEDS. Perhaps you could have your med school's program director/student coordinator attending in those specific fields draft a letter for you.

Use those electives to explore some other fields. Check out rads, uro, rad onc, gas, SICU (if ye be brave enough for surgery then this be a good one), EM, or plastics. Definitely radiology. IR's pretty sweet. Lots more out there!

 

[beyond all hope]

I disagree that you need to decide first. You need to get letters first! That is definately a rate-limiting step. At our school we automatically got letters from our 3rd year rotations, so that made things much easier.

I do agree you should consider other specialties. You have to be a special kind of doctor to be happy in the primary care specialities in this day and age.

Go get those letters. If you don't use them, no big deal. If you don't have them and you need them, very bad.

It's not inappropriate to tell someone you are really excited about Peds before you've decided. Get excited about each speciality, and get the letters. Some people even apply to multiple specialities and decide later during interview season (not recommended but its been done).

 

[GeneGoddess]

I don't think you need anything special to match into OB or PEDS.

It depends on the program. I've seen everything from "two letters" to needing a letter from your core Pedi rotation to a Pedi Chair letter.