LOR question

[smarterchild]

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hey guys! i just had a quick question. between the summer of my 2nd and 3rd year of med school, i spent a month with a doctor just to gain some clinical experience prior to my rotations. it wasn't anything that i registered with my med school, but i did go in every day, saw patients, helped diagnose, and formulate a plan. so i was thinking of getting a letter of recommendation from him. do you think the letter will acceptable even though i didnt register a rotation with him? i wanna have 3 letters by Sept 1, so i'm kinda of in a jam right now. thanks for your help in advance!

 

[alwaysaangel]

hey guys! i just had a quick question. between the summer of my 2nd and 3rd year of med school, i spent a month with a doctor just to gain some clinical experience prior to my rotations. it wasn't anything that i registered with my med school, but i did go in every day, saw patients, helped diagnose, and formulate a plan. so i was thinking of getting a letter of recommendation from him. do you think the letter will acceptable even though i didnt register a rotation with him? i wanna have 3 letters by Sept 1, so i'm kinda of in a jam right now. thanks for your help in advance!

Really depends on what you're going into.

Some specialties are ok with 2 letters from their specialty and some from other docs. Other specialties only want to see their own specialty (EM is like this).

So it depends on what you're going into, and what kind of doc he is.

 

[smarterchild]

hey thanks for the quick reply. he is a dermatologist and im thinking of anesthesia. of the 2 letters i have right now, one is anesthesia and i will have a 2nd one before interviews (most likely in a couple of weeks - i just finished a rotation and asked one of them for a letter). i just wanted to have 3 total before i applied to the programs next week.

 

[alwaysaangel]

hey thanks for the quick reply. he is a dermatologist and im thinking of anesthesia. of the 2 letters i have right now, one is anesthesia and i will have a 2nd one before interviews (most likely in a couple of weeks - i just finished a rotation and asked one of them for a letter). i just wanted to have 3 total before i applied to the programs next week.

I would contact your program director or mentor and see what anesthesia thinks of other specialty letters.

I feel like those are pretty opposite ends of the spectrum. You're better off having 2 good letters than 3 letters when one of them is considered useless.

 

[notdeadyet]

Other specialties only want to see their own specialty (EM is like this).

Really? You and I must have been looking at very different programs.

From speaking to PDs at ACEP for the California programs, most wanted 1 or 2 from Emergency Medicine and were fine with the others being from Medicine, Surgery, etc. This was true for Davis, Irvine, UCLA, UCSF, etc. When I asked if it was better to have all three from EM, they said they didn't really care.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Really? You and I must have been looking at very different programs.

From speaking to PDs at ACEP for the California programs, most wanted 1 or 2 from Emergency Medicine and were fine with the others being from Medicine, Surgery, etc. This was true for Davis, Irvine, UCLA, UCSF, etc. When I asked if it was better to have all three from EM, they said they didn't really care.

Hmm. All my mentors here (most of whom have been the PD here at one point or another) said they don't really value letters from other specialties and the focus should be EM letters. As I recall when I was at ACEP in Vegas the PDs during the Q&A said something similar.

I'm sure it doesn't matter that much either way, but its just what I've been told.

 

[notdeadyet]

I'm sure it doesn't matter that much either way, but its just what I've been told.

Yeah, definitely go by what you've heard personally. Anything else is smoke...

 

[smarterchild]

well i know most programs want 3 and he would write me a very good letter, im sure of that. i'll have the second anesthesia letter in a few weeks and i guess i'll just assign that one to the programs once its ready. i'll definitely have 2 anesthesia letters come interview time though. i just wanted 3 for the initial application review.