Pediatric Departmental/Chairman's Letters?

[embuzi]

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I learned that multiple (although far from all) pediatric residency programs require submitting a departmental / chairman's letter, written by either the chair of the department, the program director, or the clerkship director.

As my institution is having logistical difficulties with this currently, there is a chance that I may not be able to get a departmental letter until later or perhaps not at all.

Thus, I wanted to ask if it would be a good idea to submit ERAS as early as possible, even without a departmental letter. If it comes in later, I heard it could be submitted then?

Or, I was reading this thread below (from 2007), and someone mentioned submitting a document stating that his/her school did not provide departmental letters. Does anyone know whether that might be fine?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=435144

Finally, this same thread mentioned a few of the programs that required these letters. In looking up some of those programs, some no longer require them. Does anyone happen to know if there's a comprehensive current list anywhere of programs that do require departmental letters? If not, I'll look at each individual program's website, but I thought I'd ask in case this information was readily available somewhere. Thanks!

 

[mvenus929]

I'm not sure if this list is completely comprehensive (I was working off a list my school gave me, and I'm not sure if it includes all the peds programs in the country), but this is my list for who requires a departmental letter of some sort.

Buffalo (If possible, one reference should be from a pediatric chair or from the head of a clinical service on which you recently served.)
Duke (chair or clerkship director)
ECU (optional)
LSU-New Orleans (optional)
Northwestern (encouraged)
Ohio State (optional)
St. Louis Children's Hospital (chair or program director)
Stanford (chair, program director, or clerkship director)
Stony Brooke (optional)
SUNY Brooklyn (optional)
UCSF (chair, program director, or clerkship director)
UNC (chair or clerkship director)
University of Nevada - Las Vegas (clerkship director or ACE preceptor)
University of South Florida (encouraged)
University of Wisconsin (preferred)
UT Southwestern (suggested)
Vermont (chair)

 

[GoSpursGo]

Thus, I wanted to ask if it would be a good idea to submit ERAS as early as possible, even without a departmental letter. If it comes in later, I heard it could be submitted then?

Definitely submit your application as soon as possible. You can always add more letters later (so long as you don't assign the max number allowed to a school!). A number of places might still offer you interviews based on the rest of your application and just want you to have that letter in before your interview, and you can always update the schools that haven't given you an interview that wanted that letter with a brief email when you get the letter uploaded 🙂

Good luck!

 

[doopdidoop]

I'm not sure if this list is completely comprehensive (I was working off a list my school gave me, and I'm not sure if it includes all the peds programs in the country), but this is my list for who requires a departmental letter of some sort.

Buffalo (If possible, one reference should be from a pediatric chair or from the head of a clinical service on which you recently served.)
Duke (chair or clerkship director)
ECU (optional)
LSU-New Orleans (optional)
Northwestern (encouraged)
Ohio State (optional)
St. Louis Children's Hospital (chair or program director)
Stanford (chair, program director, or clerkship director)
Stony Brooke (optional)
SUNY Brooklyn (optional)
UCSF (chair, program director, or clerkship director)
UNC (chair or clerkship director)
University of Nevada - Las Vegas (clerkship director or ACE preceptor)
University of South Florida (encouraged)
University of Wisconsin (preferred)
UT Southwestern (suggested)
Vermont (chair)

i don't know about the others, but UCSF's is also not required, just "highly recommended"

"We highly recommend that one of these letters be from the Chair of your Department of Pediatrics or the equivalent (the Director of the Pediatric Residency Training Program or the Pediatric Clerkship Director may also write a "departmental letter")."