picking 4th year electives, should you gun for LORs?

[coralfangs]

just wondering, should you choose one or two electives based on whether you would get good LORs from the docs?

ie. let's say you did a 2 wk 3rd year elective at one of the IM services and you have impressed most of the attendings in that service already, should you take the 4th year elective at the same service again in order to get good LORs from them?
or would the PDs for the residency programs think that you are merely gunning for letters?

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[cushie]

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[ACSurgeon]

just wondering, should you choose one or two electives based on whether you would get good LORs from the docs?

ie. let's say you did a 2 wk 3rd year elective at one of the IM services and you have impressed most of the attendings in that service already, should you take the 4th year elective at the same service again in order to get good LORs from them?
or would the PDs for the residency programs think that you are merely gunning for letters?

Some schools have policies against working on the same service as a 4th year as you did as a third year (to give you a broader exposure). Not sure if this applies in your situation, as general medicine is the same regardless of service. Asidem from that, doing 4th year rotations with attendings that have the potential to write you strong letters is the way to go.

 

[confuse]

In general, I think picking an elective based on how strong you think your evals/LORs will be is a smart move. However, I'm not sure that I would want to retake an elective (same elective name?) because that would be too suspicious.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

you have impressed most of the attendings in that service already, should you take the 4th year elective at the same service again in order to get good LORs from them?

I don't understand...if you have already impressed them, why not just ask for a LOR now?

 

[OveractiveBrain]

(1) You are in fourth year. Your ERAS should be done. Your letters should have been chosen already. Your CV complete. Fourth year is about interviews, not getting LORs.

(2) Even if your fourth year starts early (say, in april) its already been said. If you impressed people already, then you should already have a letter from them. Thats pretty obvious

(3) Fourth year should be spent doing things you wont have the opportunity to do in your career. That may be doing an ortho rotation to learn how to do a knee exam. That may be doing a cush elective so you can paint that hobby train-town thats been sitting in your basement for the past 4 years.

(4) If you are behind on the LORs, and you dont have anybody else to ask, and you didnt get the letters when you should have, and youre obviously starting 4th year early because you arent already in ERAS mode, yeah, go get some LORs.

 

[Depakote]

(1) You are in fourth year. Your ERAS should be done. Your letters should have been chosen already. Your CV complete. Fourth year is about interviews, not getting LORs.

(2) Even if your fourth year starts early (say, in april) its already been said. If you impressed people already, then you should already have a letter from them. Thats pretty obvious

(3) Fourth year should be spent doing things you wont have the opportunity to do in your career. That may be doing an ortho rotation to learn how to do a knee exam. That may be doing a cush elective so you can paint that hobby train-town thats been sitting in your basement for the past 4 years.

(4) If you are behind on the LORs, and you dont have anybody else to ask, and you didnt get the letters when you should have, and youre obviously starting 4th year early because you arent already in ERAS mode, yeah, go get some LORs.

I don't necessarily agree with the above.

Plenty of people need the first months of 4th year to do electives in their chosen specialty in order to get LORs. Hell, some people don't even figure out what that specialty is until then.

ERAS doesn't go in until September 1st. You still have plenty of time to gun for LORs before then (and even after).

I picked up 1 LOR in medicine during 3rd year (which I only sent to prelims). I got 2 LORs in August and 2 in September... this hasn't hurt my interview trail in the least.

But yeah, if you're sure you've already impressed them... go ahead and ask for the LOR. But don't feel like you need to have a full complement of them by the start of 4th year. Just remember, you get better as you go along. It's still early in your 3rd year. You're going to be a lot more seasoned and better at this by this time next year, you want your letters to reflect that.