Would a family medicine letter of rec be inappropriate for anesthesia?

[sunealoneal]

One of my best experiences in my 3rd year was my time in family medicine. Would it be okay to get a letter from that physician? Or would it appear less than ideal?

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[Psai]

It's fine

 

[anbuitachi]

Totally fine.

 

[sunealoneal]

Sweet. Thanks!

 

[zizzer]

I think it's actually encouraged to have a letter that's not from an anesthesiologist. I would just try to make sure you have a couple from anesthesiologists along with the family medicine one.

 

[vector2]

I had two from anesthesiologists and one from family med.

 

[repititionition]

Can I add my neuroticism to the pile? Is there any problem with my plan:

- chair of medicine (worked with him clinically and have done research with him-- he offered to write a letter proactively)
- burn surgeon (worked 1:1 with him [no residents, etc.] for a month -- he also offered proactively)
- academic anesthesiologist
- community anesthesiologist

These are all faculty at a large midwestern state school, with the exception of the community doc, obviously.

I'd plan to drop the community letter for any program that had a hard stop at 3 letters.

 

[AdmiralChz]

Anyone who can provide an honest and solid assessments of your traits and skills is a good letter writer. At the residency stage it is perfectly acceptable to have non-specialty writers (you still need one or two within the field of course) - we found some of the strongest letters come from these experiences during medical school, since you didn't spend the entire time doing anesthesiology rotations.

Some applicants go out and seek a big name (chairman, big researcher, etc...) within anesthesiology and unless they've done significant work with him or her it ends up being a lukewarm form letter which is pretty easy to spot. Go get a letter with some panache!

Come fellowship it's more important to have subspecialty-specific writers, but that's a different discussion. OP and @repititionition will be fine with their plans.

 

[DrCommonSense]

One of my best experiences in my 3rd year was my time in family medicine. Would it be okay to get a letter from that physician? Or would it appear less than ideal?

I used non anesthesia LOR for some of them.

 

[turnupthegas]

All good in the hood. I used 2 anesthesiologist, a pediatrician, and a surgeon for my LORs.

 

[Uisa]

Echo the sentiments above. As long as you have an anesthesiologist letter the others can be from other fields. Honestly think the programs want to see who you are as a person first, before they look at what you did on your anesthesia rotation; so anyone who can vouch for you in a positive light, I'd go with them.

As a reference I had 2 anesthesiologist letters, 1 surgery and 1 hospitalist letter (for the prelim Med spots)