science1000 Posted August 20, 2019 Report Share Posted August 20, 2019 Anyone have experience and advice for what types of reference letters to use for family medicine CARMS applications? Should all 3 be from family doctors? and are letters for fourth year electives better than letters from third year core rotations? We just started our fourth year and right now and I know I can get a strong letter from a 3rd year fam med preceptor and another strong letter from a 4th year fam med preceptor I did an elective with. I'm on another fam med elective right now and my preceptor says I'm doing well and didn't give much feedback but he seems a bit distant and less personable than others I've worked with so I'd be hesitant to get one from him unless I have no other options. I don't have any more family med electives until right around CARMS applications time but I do have an emerg and peds elective which if I do well on can be potential LOR opportunities. Any advice on this situation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorzo Posted August 21, 2019 Report Share Posted August 21, 2019 Use the people who can best advocate for you. Generally you can impress more in 4th year than 3rd, generally people will know you better over a core rather than an elective, generally family physicians can make a better case for you then specialists. But at the end of the day those are all generalities, if a 3rd year surgery elective preceptor connected with you it's going to be way more effective than a generic paragraph from a random family preceptor in 4th year. It gets suspicious if none of your strongest letters are from family preceptors, but I promise you when someone is reading 30 letters in a row the content matters infinitely more than when or where you met the writer LittleDaisy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleDaisy Posted August 23, 2019 Report Share Posted August 23, 2019 I agree with Rorzo, go with the strongest letters you can get, at least 1 LOR should ideally come from a family physician. We prefer family physicians as specialists don't have a good idea of how our specialty is different from own. As I had been in the selection committee, a generic short paragraph LOR from a family doctor is going to hurt you more than a great LOR from a surgeon for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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