Was wondering, how do general surgery PDs view LORs that come from surgeons of different departments, e.g., orthopedic surgeon? If you are applying for a General Surgery residency, must ALL letters ideally be from general surgeons?
General Surgery LORs - can be from other type of surgeon?
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Its fine...although if ALL your letters are from surgical subspecialties, I'd think the GS faculty would wonder why. So best to limit it to 1 of the 3 or 4 letters required.
B
Blade28
I had one CT Surg letter and 3 (or was it 4?) G Surg ones.
What if you are applying to a surgical subspecialty like plastics and you only have plastic surgery letters, but you want to make sure you have a good back up plan with general surgery...Will the general surgery PD's not like all those plastic surgery letters?
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They might not. General surgeons are very sensitive to being used as back-up, especially for a specialty they don't (in general) respect much. I'd try and get a general surgery letter if possible and practice my, "oh no, I"m very interested in general surgery and the excellent foundation of training it provides" speech.
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They probably do, but its a well known phenomenon that when you declare your interest in pursuing PRS training, that general surgeons lose interest in educating you. Not just at my residency program, but I've heard tales of it happening elsewhere.
Its pretty much the case for any specialty they perceive as "lifestyle" oriented; whether or not its realistic.
