Why is a LOR from a physician bad?

[mehc012]

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I received a LOR from a physician I did research with this summer. I don't know what it said, obviously, but I feel like it was probably my best LOR. After working with him for 10 weeks, I can tell that he was extremely genuine and would not have offered to do it if it wasn't going to be good.

I would say just use your judgement. Does the physician seem like he/she will write a sincere and worthwhile LOR? If not, don't do it.

That is an excellent example of how calling all physician letters bad is a misleading oversimplification. It would be more apt for people to say that shadowing letters are of limited value. Unfortunately, since the majority of physician LORs are shadowing letters, the two get conflated.

Yours was a letter from your research mentor, who happened to be a physician. That is in a COMPLETELY different ballpark from a physician shadowing letter. You hit the nail on the head with your bolded statement...the real question is 'what can this person say about me?' not 'what does their title say about them?'

 

[gyngyn]

I received a LOR from a physician I did research with this summer. I don't know what it said, obviously, but I feel like it was probably my best LOR. After working with him for 10 weeks, I can tell that he was extremely genuine and would not have offered to do it if it wasn't going to be good.
.

Doctors always write warm positive letters!
For this reason, they do not help us discriminate between candidates.
They are frequently friends of the family (or even the candidate's own physician!). Years of seeing this has devalued them in the eyes of seasoned committee members.
If your letter writer was a supervisor or had some other reason to offer a real letter of evaluation, it would be helpful in the same way as any supervisor.