LOR dilemma

[iwanttobelieve]

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Hey guys,

US MD applying to peds. I have a bit of a pickle about my letters. So I've been working on and off on research with this peds attending, resulting in a few abstracts/posters etc., and they said they knew me well enough from working together to write me a good letter. I then had a rotation with this attending (during which I basically just shadowed on Zoom thanks to COVID) and just got back my eval from him, and it was a pretty average generic (3/5) eval. My thing is, I'm now questioning the strength of this letter. I have another letter I could potentially swap it with which I know is strong, but the other letter is from an attending in another specialty (psych) who is also a fairly new attending (my research doc is a full prof, not sure if it matters as much for peds).

Hoping to do NICU eventually so would prefer to end up in a more academic residency.

 

[AzBasRad]

Provided you already have other strong peds letters, strong LoR from Psych > Lukewarm peds LoR.

 

[Dave1980]

Don't use this LOR. They won't write you a strong LOR.

 

[iwanttobelieve]

So I guess my next question is: this takes me down to 3 clinical letters. Do people usually just send the minimum 3? I have a chair letter also but am not sure how personalized that one will be (seems like it varies from school to school?).

 

[CliveStaples]

I would ask the faculty member if they would be comfortable writing you a STRONG letter of recommendation. Their answer will likely reveal whether you should use them or not. Recognize that some faculty members unfortunately spend little time on their rotation evaluations and it may not speak to how they would actually write about you. That said, anything less than an enthusiastic, positive yes to your question should be a sign to look elsewhere.

 

[iwanttobelieve]

I would ask the faculty member if they would be comfortable writing you a STRONG letter of recommendation. Their answer will likely reveal whether you should use them or not. Recognize that some faculty members unfortunately spend little time on their rotation evaluations and it may not speak to how they would actually write about you. That said, anything less than an enthusiastic, positive yes to your question should be a sign to look elsewhere.

Sorry, should have clarified. The letter is already uploaded but I just got my rotation eval. I did ask for a strong letter and he had seemed enthusiastic when he agreed, and later when we met to discuss it further.