Question about my dean's letter

[Plinko]

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I was just interested if anyone out there has had the chance to review their Dean's letter? And if so, was there anything that was at all negative in it. I was just emailed mine for review and I am a little concerned about its contents. Our Dean of Education simply writes some background info on us, puts in our class rank, board scores, his thoughts about us as future doctors, and then third year core rotation grades and excerpts from our attendings' evaluations. Two phrases in particular are worrisome to me: from my Family Medicine attending..."Good student. Good knowledge base. Does not seem very interested in being here as he wants to be a surgeon" and from my OB/GYN attending..."Attentive and diligent. Able to take criticism well and do his work well. Did well on our final exam. Always speaks in a low, very serious voice – he needs to lighten up somewhat with patients." Everything else from my other attendings/rotations seems to be pretty complimentary, including the Dean's personal comments. Just curious if this something I need be overly concerned about.

At our school it seems the Dean's letters don't get padded very much. They pretty much include everything they have one you. I was wondering if other schools only put in the good stuff and leave out all the bad?

 

[Smurfette]

I was just interested if anyone out there has had the chance to review their Dean's letter? And if so, was there anything that was at all negative in it. I was just emailed mine for review and I am a little concerned about its contents. Our Dean of Education simply writes some background info on us, puts in our class rank, board scores, his thoughts about us as future doctors, and then third year core rotation grades and excerpts from our attendings' evaluations. Two phrases in particular are worrisome to me: from my Family Medicine attending..."Good student. Good knowledge base. Does not seem very interested in being here as he wants to be a surgeon" and from my OB/GYN attending..."Attentive and diligent. Able to take criticism well and do his work well. Did well on our final exam. Always speaks in a low, very serious voice – he needs to lighten up somewhat with patients." Everything else from my other attendings/rotations seems to be pretty complimentary, including the Dean's personal comments. Just curious if this something I need be overly concerned about.

At our school it seems the Dean's letters don't get padded very much. They pretty much include everything they have one you. I was wondering if other schools only put in the good stuff and leave out all the bad?

Dean's letters are pretty formulaic. Some schools will allow you to nix a negative comment or two...some won't. And if those are your only two "bad" comments (which are very different in nature), I wouldn't worry too much assuming you aren't interested in FP. What would worry PDs is negative comments in your (or related) field of choice and overall trends in negative comments such as 4 people commented on "x". An isolated comment won't hurt you much unless it is very bad and implies you are a menace to society.