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The situation where an attending trusts you to describe what positive things you bring to the table? If the attending thought you sucked they should say " find another writer" or " I am not comfortable recommending you to residency programs". I personaly wouldn't ask anyone for a LOR without being on excellent terms with the person. Doing otherwise would seem disingenious. So if I am on excellent terms with someone I hardly think it disingenious to write my own letter, have them reveiw it, agree to it, and then sign. If anything it seems more honest imho.
LORs are exactly that, letters of recomendation, not a sneaky way to bend some one over. I never understud how an attending or person writing a lor could write anything other than what they agreed to write, a recommendation.
How is it more honest if you are writing a letter that your attending/preceptor was supposed to write?
I dont know why I am so surprised at these suggestions. Ethics has been on the decline in this country for many years. Medicine and science are not exceptions.
I am sorry but what you are suggesting is not ethical. As someone who has written dozens of letters, I can tell you that good letter writing takes time. If you attending is suggesting that you write the letter and he signs it, he/she is not willing to take the time to write a good letter for you. It is his responsibility to tell you this so that you can find another writer.
You have to ask yourself, "where does it stop". If an attending asked you to fill in your own evaluation for one of your clerkships, would you do it? If a scientist asked you to sign your name to something that you didnt do, would you do it? If you are asked by the interviewer about the letter (ie did you write it) how would you respond?
During my career, I have received 30 or so letters of recommendation. None of these writers ever asked me to write my own letter. I have also never suggested this in any of the letters that I have written. To ask a prospective student to write their own letter puts a lot of pressure on them and really isnt fair.
OK off of my soapbox.[/quote]
The process of going over the lor, regardless of who wrote it, is what makes a letter more accurate/honest. This whole waving the right to veiw the LOR is asinine. What puprose dose it serve? This is a letter of recomendation not an anonymous evaluation. And the only place for anonymous evaluations is when the evaluee holds much power over the evaluator. In the LOR case, the medical student has absolutly no power over an attending thus the attendings comments should be privy to the student. But that is another issue. And for the record I played the game and have not seen any of my lor. But I still think it is dumb the system operates this way.
I agree that writing a letter demands much time and effort. I have written a few in my previous life, not dozens, but enough to realize the effort. I also go over the letter with the person to make sure it rings true to them. I guess I just don't feel the same level of reproach you do if they wrote it and then we reviewed it. But maybe your of the school the letter should be some secret thing, which would be are fundemental ethical difference.
As far as your slippery slope argument...Happens much more than in LOR or evals on a rotation. Papers are pumped out every year with principal investigators who are anything but. And how do they repond when asked who did the research?
