Letters of Rec

[dsherida]

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I am at the point where I am starting to ask people for LORs. Do you think it makes a diff in peds what a person's title is? I have a physician in a specialty and the chief of that specialty both offering to write me letters. Would it hurt to submit letters from both in the same specialty?

Second question is if you know a physician well and think they will write you a good LOR do you think it matters if they are a DO vs an MD?

Thanks for your suggestions and thoughts!

 

[LeftVentricle]

I am at the point where I am starting to ask people for LORs. Do you think it makes a diff in peds what a person's title is? I have a physician in a specialty and the chief of that specialty both offering to write me letters. Would it hurt to submit letters from both in the same specialty?

Second question is if you know a physician well and think they will write you a good LOR do you think it matters if they are a DO vs an MD?

Thanks for your suggestions and thoughts!

Speaking as a fourth-year who recently matched:

When choosing letter writers, it's important to choose people who know you well, and can put more into their letter than, "Alice is a hard worker," or "James is extremely bright." You want the programs to which you're applying to be able to get a sense of the type of person you are, and how well you would fit with their department. Asking a "big name" to write you a letter simply because other people know who he or she is won't help you much, unless, of course, you've been fortunate enough to get to know that person well and work closely with them.

To answer your questions, I don't think it matters if you have multiple physicians from the same sub-specialty write letters for you, particularly if you're thinking about a fellowship in that area. Having said that, it's nice to have a "mix" of letters from physicians in different specialties, because each writer will be able to discuss your strengths as a medical student, and your interests outside of school, from a slightly different angle, which gives programs an even better idea of what you are like.

It also shouldn't matter if a physician trained at an allopathic or osteopathic school. To be perfectly honest with you, if a program didn't invite you for an interview simply because "a D.O. wrote one of your letters," that's probably not a program you want to be a part of.

Additionally, some programs may require a chairman's letter, or a letter from a pediatric clerkship director, so it would be worthwhile to meet with one of both of these people at your institution. Not only will they be able to write a letter for you, but they will also be able to give you an idea of where you should apply, based on board scores, grades, your interests, etc.

Good luck, and let me know if there's anything I can do for you.

-LV

 

[dsherida]

Thanks a lot for your reply...I really appreciate it!

How many letters did you send to each program...it has been hard to figure out how many each really wants.

Congrats on matching!

 

[BigRedBeta]

I found the FREIDA website to be accurate in terms of number of letters required. For peds, the number is usually 3 and they want ONLY three letters - no extras. I'm sure there are a couple of programs that may ask for 4 or want a one of the letters to be a chairman's letter, but that sort of requirement will be on the program's website.

 

[bjackrian]

I sent 4 to each program, though of the 15 programs I initially applied to, only the University of Washington required four letters. It didn't seem to hurt me at the programs where they only required/requested three letters. I sent one letter from an outpatient peds preceptor, one from inpatient peds, one from my research, and one from the PICU (which is what I'm interested in). I was heavy on peds letters which was just coincidence with who I had the best relationships with and was definitely *not* necessary. I would have been more hesitant to send four letters to the programs that requested three if I didn't think that the letters offered different perspectives.

 

[jonb12997]

I actually had a fairly wide variety of letters. I obviously had a pediatrician that I got along well with. She definitely wrote a more personal letter. Then I had an IM hospitalist, a nephrologist, and the DME at the hospital where I did my 3rd year cores (smaller community hospital, the DME was basically our clerkship director). It was a nice mix of perspectives.

 

[Baby Einstein]

Reviving the thread 🙂

Is it ok to have ALL my letters from pediatricians? I have 3 (not including a Chairman's), all from attendings who knew me very well. I am confident that these letters will be very strong and personal, but I am a little concerned that their content may be very similar. Would it be preferrable to have a letter from another specialty for another perspective? Thank you in advance for your advice.

 

[generic]

I'm no program director, or even a chief resident, but FWIW...

I think it's nice (but not essential) to have about one letter from a non-pedi attending. This is because it shows you can still work hard in other areas, get along with specialists, suck up to important people, whatever you want to call it.

However, if you have 3 strong pedi letters from attendings who know you well, then that should be plenty of evidence to support your case. After all, they are the ones who are going to be working with pedi residents in the future, eh?

So if you don't have an outside letter, I wouldn't sweat it. Probably not a good idea to ask some joe-shmoe IM attending that barely knows you to write a letter because he/she will just come up with something generic and bland...

Good luck!