Recommendation letters for med-peds?

[mercaptovizadeh]

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What would be a general set of letters that would work for pretty much all programs? I heard that there's a limit of 4 letters total, or could I submit more?

I was planning on asking chair of medicine, chair of pediatrics, PhD advisor, but I'm not sure about the last person. Should it be someone I worked with in an AI?

 

[NERDY]

ERAS allows you to assign up to 4 letters per program.

 

[ashmarj]

What would be a general set of letters that would work for pretty much all programs? I heard that there's a limit of 4 letters total, or could I submit more?

I was planning on asking chair of medicine, chair of pediatrics, PhD advisor, but I'm not sure about the last person. Should it be someone I worked with in an AI?

Overall, you want letters that are written by physicians who know your clinical capabilities. Yes, most programs require at least one chair letter (if not two with one from each), but the other two are up to your discretion. For most people, they have not worked directly with the chairs of each department so these letters will be a relative compilation of how you've done on rotations in those departments.

Unless your PhD advisor also knows you in a clinical capacity, I'm not sure I would keep that as one of the four. I would instead opt to have one medicine and one pediatrics letter. They could be from your M3 year if you did well enough, or you can wait until an AI. I felt like I was able to get excellent letters from my rotations third year so I didn't worry about getting letters during my AIs.

One final thing-you can often fax an additional letter to most programs. This may be the one you get from your PhD advisor.

 

[member77077]

I'd definitely get a letter from the chair for both medicine and peds. But, these are generally generic letters, so I wouldn't assign them to programs unless they specifically asked for them.

That means that you'd need 2-4 additional letters. The PhD adviser is fine......but some programs specifically state that they want somebody who knows you clinically and in those circumstances, I would not use the PhD adviser (unless he/she does know you clinically). I would go for 6-7 letters (including the PhD adviser, chair letters) and then if one falls short, you can always get away with 4 letters although being able to tailor what you send to each program is nice (i.e. not sending a chair letter unless specifically asked).