What were your LOR's like??

[doc_radio]

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I am terribly disappointed! I was working with a radio faculty member for 6months, I did 2 research projects with him. I asked him If he can write a letter for me, he agreed. I gave my CV, cover letter etc. I thought he will give me a nice LOR, as one of our work was accepted for publication. & today i discovered he asked his secretary to write a letter for me. Oh god, she told me she wrote the entire letter on her own, since he(the attending) didnt get time. I'm feeling so disappointed after seeing the letter, it has mere few adjectives, which she told me that is usually written for everyone!!!!!!! I believe they should take out some time to write letters on their own! So people who have applied before, what were your LORs like?? Mine is 3 short paragraphs with words like hard working, energetic, mature.....
am I cribbing too much? is it the same way with others who apply & match succesfully?

 

[imawinner]

you think the radiologist cares about you? most radiologists dont care about people, so it makes sense for him to do what he did. i know you must feel bad, but i've also come to learn that most people (esp radiologist) only care about themselves. he probably just wanted free labor from you...

 

[(nicedream)]

Mine is 3 short paragraphs with words like hard working, energetic, mature.....

What's wrong with that? Are those poor qualities?

 

[dralex]

today i discovered he asked his secretary to write a letter for me.

We all know that Radiologists can't write and he probably couldn't figure out how to tie in the dictation system to write your letter....
Don't take it too bad. A short letter of recommendation is not a bad thing. You got to work on something that you (hopefully) enjoyed. Got a publication out of it too. Not too bad if you ask me.
Chalk it up as a learning/skin thickening experience.

 

[greenbean]

have u seen the letter?

if you have, then u can tell whether it is good or bad

if you have not,then this is all speculation

i will give you examples of bad letters that i got:
1 one letter from a surgery was literally 3 lines. it basically said 'green did well on surgery and scrubbed on many cases. green was extremely knowledgeable hard working and well respected by the residents. i am sure green will excel in whatever field green chooses to go into'. and this was a guy who i worked on a presentation with about a very unique surgical case and who gave me honors on the rotation

2. one letter from a md/phd who i did research for and got a letter published, was 2 paragraphs, nothing stellar, pretty dry and drab and would be described at best as an 'okay' letter

getting good, helpful letters takes a bit of tact, you have to know who to ask,who writes a good letter, thats why i always get more letters than i need, if they send them to me to review, then i can toss the bad ones.

is there another radiologist you worked with who can write you a letter? as far as doing research and getting the letter from your PI, in these cases, the PI wants you to do the grunt work in the lab and see the letter as a hostage(u do work, i give good letter; no work then no letter), or theyll simply write a $hitty letter to get it over with. its not just something that applies to just radiologists, but i thinks it applies to alot of researchers who know that you are gonna use the letter to elevate yourself and probably not even go into research and this pisses them off even more.

hope this helps