Having trouble with SLOEs

[alexalex]

I only got to work once with the clerkship director at an away rotation, but I have been told he is the one to send SLOE requests to. I worked with other attendings who got to know me much better and would be willing to write me a letter. Thing is because I'm going into EM I need to specifically obtain a SLOE. This clerkship director made it sound like he can write but he only worked with me once! I responded that I would like for it to be a department letter where all people I worked with most can say something. Isn't that what SLOE is? Am I crazy? Should I ask one of the other people to write an individual letter in chance this guy won't collect people's opinions and write a SLOE based on 1 day interaction?!

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[racerwad]

I only got to work once with the clerkship director at an away rotation, but I have been told he is the one to send SLOE requests to. I worked with other attendings who got to know me much better and would be willing to write me a letter. Thing is because I'm going into EM I need to specifically obtain a SLOE. This clerkship director made it sound like he can write but he only worked with me once! I responded that I would like for it to be a department letter where all people I worked with most can say something. Isn't that what SLOE is? Am I crazy? Should I ask one of the other people to write an individual letter in chance this guy won't collect people's opinions and write a SLOE based on 1 day interaction?!

I can't say if you are crazy, but you are worrying about nothing. It is standard for the clerkship director (who may or may not have worked with you) to write the SLOE. Their letter is taken as a department letter. At our institution, both residents and faculty send input on med students to the clerkship director to compose SLOEs; that feedback is submitted whether the student specifically asked for it or not. So, don't worry, people are likely giving the director the info they need to write an accurate letter. If it makes you feel better, ask those faculty with whom you had a positive experience with to submit their thoughts to the clerkship director for inclusion into the SLOE. Honestly, it will probably be easier for them to casually send an email to their colleague than write a SLOE or formal LOR.

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

If it makes you feel better I never worked with the clerkship director at one of my aways.

 

[RPedigo]

I am a clerkship director and I write SLOEs for students who I never work with all the time (literally every month during the busy months). This is nothing to worry about. We speak with all the attendings/residents who worked with the students, get their evaluations, and make sure everyone's input is taken into consideration when the final SLOE gets written. A SLOE from an attending who only writes one per year is nearly useless, unfortunately, because there is no basis for comparison. We would all expect if an attending wrote one SLOE that they would put them as "top 10%" since it's their only SLOE they have written, so it wouldn't mean as much as earning a top 10% of top 1/3 designation from someone who writes a hundred a year.

 

[alexalex]

I am a clerkship director and I write SLOEs for students who I never work with all the time (literally every month during the busy months). This is nothing to worry about. We speak with all the attendings/residents who worked with the students, get their evaluations, and make sure everyone's input is taken into consideration when the final SLOE gets written. A SLOE from an attending who only writes one per year is nearly useless, unfortunately, because there is no basis for comparison. We would all expect if an attending wrote one SLOE that they would put them as "top 10%" since it's their only SLOE they have written, so it wouldn't mean as much as earning a top 10% of top 1/3 designation from someone who writes a hundred a year.

Thank you! and everyone else. Its just everything was crystal clear in my home school. We gave a list of residents/attendings we worked with and the clerkship director who gave some of the lectures and gave us a legitimate orientation would write the whole thing. At this site, there was no orientation, n way to know how we are being graded, and just a very mysterious process. This helped a lot.

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

Thank you! and everyone else. Its just everything was crystal clear in my home school. We gave a list of residents/attendings we worked with and the clerkship director who gave some of the lectures and gave us a legitimate orientation would write the whole thing. At this site, there was no orientation, n way to know how we are being graded, and just a very mysterious process. This helped a lot.

I'm sure they have a way... maybe ask the CD how grades are determined?

 

[Jlaw]

Usually the PD/clerkship director handle actually writing the SLOE's, at least thats how it was where I rotated. I never did more than 1 shift with either and sometimes never worked with either. They look at your shift evals or ask the attendings/residents you worked with for feedback and the SLOE ends up being an amalgamation of the various opinions/comments/praises. Some places have very concrete grading evaluation structures, others seem like they do nothing, but all of them are watching you pretty closely.