Question on LOR

[deleted1022040]

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Hi everyone,

So I just finished an inpatient IM rotation where I spent quite a bit of time and had a great experience with a Chief Resident. According to the Clerkship Director, Chiefs are considered attendings in their eyes, and the director saw no issues with getting a letter of recommendation from this person.

For residency application, how detrimental would it be to get a strong letter of recommendation from a chief versus getting a LOR from an attending who I barely worked with?

Thank you

 

[ontiquicuo]

Any chance you could have the chief write it and the attending cosign?

 

[deleted1022040]

Any chance you could have the chief write it and the attending cosign?

Thought about that, and was shut down by one of the attendings. I do definitely appreciate that an attending LOR is the ideal.

 

[aldol16]

Why did the attending shoot down co-signing the letter? If the attending was the attending of record who was assigned to work with that chief, and the chief worked closely with you, there shouldn't be a problem with the attending co-signing the letter.

In any case, you should not be getting letters signed solely by the chiefs. It should be signed by an attending even if it's a co-sign. This matters more in some fields than others but for competitive specialties, who writes the letter really matters. And even in non-competitive specialties, I can't imagine that people would look at the letter writer who is a resident and put a whole lot of weight on that compared to if it was an attending.

 

[deleted1022040]

The attending stated they didn't do that sort of thing as they prefer to spend time with us students to make as best of an assessment as they can. I'm sure there are others who may be willing, this first instance just makes me a bit gun-shy to ask.

Is it relatively common practice to ask for attendings to sign off on letters written by chiefs/residents? This whole dance of making the right impression and not coming off in a negative way is something they don't really give us much insight/training on.

 

[guytakingboards]

For residency application, how detrimental would it be to get a strong letter of recommendation from a chief versus getting a LOR from an attending who I barely worked with?

Neither sounds great.

I suppose the strong letter from the chief would be useful if it has some specific anecdotes highlighting your strengths. Those are highly valued by the letter reader because it says the LOR writer knows the candidate well enough to vouch for them.

Flip side, a letter from a chief resident might not get much weight because the chief hasn't had a lot of experience in the advisory/evaluative role. "best med student I've ever worked with" means way more from an attending who's trained dozens if not hundreds of people.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Assuming the chief has attending privileges, then IMO it would be seen the same as any other junior attending writing an LOR. Not as meaningful as if you got a heavy-hitter writing you a letter, but if they got to know you well and can talk specifics in a letter that's definitely better than a generic letter from someone who doesn't really know you.