Letters of recomendation

[DannMann99]

So i'm curious about LoR for residency...

I'm an M3
I have not gotten any yet unfortunately... I haven't really felt like I knew any physicians well enough... I've got to get on the ball though. I'm considering PM&R, I'm going to contact an Ortho I worked with 3 months back and ask him for a letter... he'd probably do it. I'm going to try to get one from my upcoming family med rotation... This summer i'm going to try to do 2 weeks with a PMR doc and try to get a letter from him...

Does that sound like a strong plan? How many letters should I really get... How many do I need? What are your thoughts.

-Dan

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[Bacchus]

So i'm curious about LoR for residency...

I'm an M3
I have not gotten any yet unfortunately... I haven't really felt like I knew any physicians well enough... I've got to get on the ball though. I'm considering PM&R, I'm going to contact an Ortho I worked with 3 months back and ask him for a letter... he'd probably do it. I'm going to try to get one from my upcoming family med rotation... This summer i'm going to try to do 2 weeks with a PMR doc and try to get a letter from him...

Does that sound like a strong plan? How many letters should I really get... How many do I need? What are your thoughts.

-Dan

Why don't you rotate with our PMR chair and get a letter from him? That should get have some weight.

 

[DrWBD]

So i'm curious about LoR for residency...

...How many letters should I really get... How many do I need? What are your thoughts.

-Dan

How many do you need?
According to ERAS, you can assign a maximum of four to any program, so that would be the minimum. You are allowed to upload as many as you want to ERAS, though, and selectively decide which letters go to the programs to which you apply.
https://www.aamc.org/download/139506/data/myeras_user_guide_residency.pdf

How many do you want?
Your goal should be to get as many good letters as possible between now and application time, but having any letter is better than none. In the end, when you are applying, it's always better to be in the position of having too many than too few.


Thoughts...
In the future, you should strive to become friendly with and impress at least one attending on the service you are on, and always ask for a letter near the end of the rotation. It is poor form to wait until months later to ask, since some teaching attendings can see a hundred students per year and might not remember enough to write more than a generic letter.

Also, keep in mind that PM&R is not super-competitive for American graduates. While I'm not saying that to belittle the specialty, agonizing about getting great letters might not make a lot of sense in the big picture.

 

[DannMann99]

Bacchus:

I never really thought about it to be honest, is that Dworkin? You know where he practices out of? Rox?... I might actually give him a shot, i'm burning my 2wk summer break to rotate in PMR to get a letter in the field... So I have a list of 3 or 4 attendings i'm going to contact... At this point i'd rather be working 1 on 1 with an attending instead of going to a huge institution, I feel they're too impersonal.


Wanna_be:

Yea that's more comfortable then. I'll shoot for the 3 I listed earlier. I'm tossing around PMR and neuro... Either way I feel like a Ortho/PMR/Fam letters would suffice as neuro isn't particularly competitive either. If not those 2 i'll just end up in med or fam... which are probably less competitive.


Thanks guys.

-Dan

 

[Bacchus]

Bacchus:

I never really thought about it to be honest, is that Dworkin? You know where he practices out of? Rox?... I might actually give him a shot, i'm burning my 2wk summer break to rotate in PMR to get a letter in the field... So I have a list of 3 or 4 attendings i'm going to contact... At this point i'd rather be working 1 on 1 with an attending instead of going to a huge institution, I feel they're too impersonal.


Wanna_be:

Yea that's more comfortable then. I'll shoot for the 3 I listed earlier. I'm tossing around PMR and neuro... Either way I feel like a Ortho/PMR/Fam letters would suffice as neuro isn't particularly competitive either. If not those 2 i'll just end up in med or fam... which are probably less competitive.


Thanks guys.

-Dan

http://www.painfix.com/director_and_medical_staff.html

His CV is on there and he's got a lot of stuff. He's got a lot of local hospital appointments. His lectures were a bit of a drag sometime, but I bet he doesn't practice like he lectures .