Is LOR from 3rd year IM clerkship required?

[chahn85]

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I am a MS4 at a top5 school who will be applying to IM residency this fall. Medicine was my first 3rd year clerkship and I naturally had no idea what was going on. It's not like I messed up or did anything wrong, but I was far from being a rockstar. I did not know what I wanted to go into at that time, so I didn't bother asking for LORs from my attendings at the end of my rotation. Now that I need to start collecting LORs for residency, I am wondering if it is required to get one from my 3rd year IM clerkship. I understand that it would be the most ideal to get a strong letter from a faculty from my medicine clerkship, but I just don't think that any of them would be very enthusiastic if I contacted them a year after a mediocre performance.
I got honors in neurology, and both of the attendings I worked with said that they will be more than happy to write a strong letter for me. I am doing my medicine subI soon, and hope to get one from there as well.
Would it be ok if my 3 letters consisted of the department chair letter, neuro clerkship, and medicine SubI? Thanks for your advice.

 

[gutonc]

You don't need an M3 clerkship letter. A SubI letter would be better for obvious reasons. A potentially better choice (or addition to) the Neuro letter would be one from a medicine subspecialty or ICU rotation, especially if you have a clear subspecialty interest.

 

[DOcusate]

What if you have a couple subspecialty letters, a neuro, and some family lors? Kosher/not kosher for IM match?

 

[Raryn]

What if you have a couple subspecialty letters, a neuro, and some family lors? Kosher/not kosher for IM match?

So you're saying you're applying for IM without a single IM letter?

What do you think?