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<-- I love that little party guy.
Thank you notes...
- Thread starter Campy Lobacter
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<-- I love that little party guy.
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This comes up every year. Replies will come in from send thank yous to ever person you had real interaction with (all that interviewed you, secretary, key reisdents you chatted with, etc), to the middle of the road 'PD and thats enough' all the way to whats a Thank You note and why would you send that?
My personal take was to not send any. I feel like a Thank You is for someone that did something above and beyond, had to give up something for doing whatever you are thanking them for. These doctors/residents are part of a residency program/teaching program. Interviewing new folks come with the job. Therefore, my personal belief was the thank you notes are not warrented. Had I stayed the evening before with a reisdent or something else of that nature... I might have been inclined to give that individual one.
I spent a month (as a MSIV) in a small town with a 'rural physician' at the local non teaching clinic. I sent them a thank you note. They were not there to have a 'student' and what they did was above and beyond the calling of the job.
No way is the right or wrong way, and certainly no evidence supports that Thank You notes make a difference in acceptance. Do what you can justify and what feels right to you. You will be told on the trail by PDs and others that Thank You notes are NOT required and make no difference.
Good Luck..
My personal take was to not send any. I feel like a Thank You is for someone that did something above and beyond, had to give up something for doing whatever you are thanking them for. These doctors/residents are part of a residency program/teaching program. Interviewing new folks come with the job. Therefore, my personal belief was the thank you notes are not warrented. Had I stayed the evening before with a reisdent or something else of that nature... I might have been inclined to give that individual one.
I spent a month (as a MSIV) in a small town with a 'rural physician' at the local non teaching clinic. I sent them a thank you note. They were not there to have a 'student' and what they did was above and beyond the calling of the job.
No way is the right or wrong way, and certainly no evidence supports that Thank You notes make a difference in acceptance. Do what you can justify and what feels right to you. You will be told on the trail by PDs and others that Thank You notes are NOT required and make no difference.
Good Luck..
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And then you're told by others that thank you cards are read and compared by the recipients at a program to make sure they aren't saying the same thing, ie that they are somewhat personalized. Every program has a different stance on this. Some care, while some don't. You're safer just writing them everywhere you go. The majority of applicants will write them...why put yourself in the situation of being the one who didn't. It's lame, but you got to play the game to get your spot.
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I agree with Will. Also, these programs invited you to interview, they provide food, drive you around and sometimes provide lodging so I think it is just polite to say thanks.
The first post about going above and beyond reminds me of that scene in Reservoir Dogs where Mr Pink talks about tipping.
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my 2 cents from advice i've given to med students, and how i handled this last year
THANK YOU NOTES: Here is another one of those issues that can be beaten to death. In a perfect world I would have hand-written every interviewer from every program a personalized note on some awesome stationary. In reality I used stationary given to me for Christmas by someone who must not like me lol. I only hand wrote to the entire interview panel at 1 program, I wrote to the PD and Assistant PD at 3 programs, I emailed just the PD at one program (and I matched there), and emailed just the PD at another program only AFTER he had sent me an update email in late January to tell me about how they will rank people. I chose to only write to my top 5 places because I am just not a thank-you note person, but I did want to let those places know they would be ranked highly. Now I did have some pre-match sphincter tightening thinking how I should have thanked all of them, but it worked out in the end. I do think the hand written note is more formal and polite, but many places outright told me It is nice, we read them, they go in your folder, they do not affect where we rank people. BUT, the thank you note IS a great way to tell a program they are your #1, in the top of your list, will be ranked very highly, will be ranked, etc.
THANK YOU NOTES: Here is another one of those issues that can be beaten to death. In a perfect world I would have hand-written every interviewer from every program a personalized note on some awesome stationary. In reality I used stationary given to me for Christmas by someone who must not like me lol. I only hand wrote to the entire interview panel at 1 program, I wrote to the PD and Assistant PD at 3 programs, I emailed just the PD at one program (and I matched there), and emailed just the PD at another program only AFTER he had sent me an update email in late January to tell me about how they will rank people. I chose to only write to my top 5 places because I am just not a thank-you note person, but I did want to let those places know they would be ranked highly. Now I did have some pre-match sphincter tightening thinking how I should have thanked all of them, but it worked out in the end. I do think the hand written note is more formal and polite, but many places outright told me It is nice, we read them, they go in your folder, they do not affect where we rank people. BUT, the thank you note IS a great way to tell a program they are your #1, in the top of your list, will be ranked very highly, will be ranked, etc.
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FWIW, I matched to my first choice, and I didn't send any thank you notes to anyone. To me they are like chocolate sprinkles. You won't miss them on a good cupcake and they won't make a bad cupcake taste anybetter. I say save yourself the headache, unless you are a borderline cupcake.
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D
deleted109597
None of the above. However, I think emails are basically ignored.
I would venture they prefer them legible, but the coordinator likely reads them all.
If you start out sending it to everyone at the program, you will either stop after the first, or hire a service to do it for you. If you send it to the people who interview you, you will hate the one place that schedules 9 interviews for you that day.3. Is there a general rule about who gets the thank yous? Send them
to faculty or residents that interview only? Or does everyone including the
hospital janitor get one for deciding not to kill you? (You can laugh if you
get this obscure Scrubs reference. Or not.)
I think it is ridiculous, and a waste of paper. If you are doing it out of politeness, do it to the person who invited you to the interview only. If you are doing it out of some misguided sense of necessity (brought on by whatever forces), then it will read through.
By the way, my n=1 sample size included more than 40 thank you notes and I still didn't get a job.
