Surgery Letter

[Jaded Soul]

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I spoke to the PD at my school recently and he adamently insisted that one of the three LORs should come from surgery. (He also said the other two should be one ophtho and one medicine.) He made it sound like not having a surgery letter will be a major deficiency. He went so far as to say that the majority of the top tier programs won't even consider interviewing you if someone doesn't mention your potential to be a good surgeon. He also said that when he interviews people without a surgery letter, he always asks why they don't have one.

What is very confusing is that most of the people I've talked to didn't have a surgery letter and matched just fine. I ran into one of his own residents right after talking to him and she didn't have a surgery letter when she applied. I planned on sending two ophthalmology and one medicine letter, which I thought was acceptable until I talked to the PD. Now I'm stressed out about this. I thought it wasn't a big deal, but the PD was really pressing the issue and I figure he has to know what he's talking about since his program is one of the best in the country.

So question for the people who've matched, who wrote your letters? Did it come up during interviews that you didn't have a surgery letter? Could this PD be putting emphasis on the surgery letter that others do not? Should I be worried about this?

 

[mdkurt]

I thought having a surgery letter of recommendation was pretty important too when I applied. After interviewing applicants, however, I found that I skimmed the letters but really looked at who they were from. Ophtho is a very tight club, and if your letter-writers are known this will help you. Yes, a strong surgery letter will help too, but no one is going to recognize a general surgeon. Don't stress about it.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

I was told the same thing too in regards to a surgery letter, but I didn't use one. In fact, I used a peds letter because I completed medicine 4 years previous to when I applied and didn't complete the surgery rotation until after I applied to ophthalmology.

When a surgeon writes you a letter, can s/he really comment on your surgical skills based on your ability to retract and tie 1-O and 2-0 sutures? A lot of what we do in ophthalmology requires good stereopsis, microscopic technique, and working with tiny sutures like 9-O and 10-O. These can only be learned during a rotation in ophthalmology or during one's training.

I think the surgery or medicine letters serve more of an assessment tool for students during a difficult clerkship. Few if no students do any surgery on the rotation; thus, we have to read letters that claim students will be excellent surgeons with a grain of salt.