Is it bad to send PD letters to that program

[Blueblie]

I have a letter from a PD but they never mentioned not using it for that home program. Would that be a bad idea?

[bearded frog]

No it's fine to use a letter from a program staff for that program. If theyve wrote it, you're good. The trouble is if you do an elective with the PD and some PDs won't write letters.

[Snowmen]

One caveat is that if you have other letters, I would use those instead of letters from the PD. Using the PD's letter ends up "wasting" one of your letters since they're already well aware of what they wrote. Unless you don't have other strong letters, I wouldn't do it although it's not that you can't.

[confusedmedstudent2022]

I think it also depends on your specialty. Since we didn't have visiting electives, you're limited to letters from home faculty (unless you did some significant research with faculty from another school), so if it's a smaller specialty, they probably already know you from your electives and have made up their minds about you either way

[robclem21]

6 hours ago, Snowmen said:

One caveat is that if you have other letters, I would use those instead of letters from the PD. Using the PD's letter ends up "wasting" one of your letters since they're already well aware of what they wrote. Unless you don't have other strong letters, I wouldn't do it although it's not that you can't.

I don't necessarily agree with this. Obviously it is specialty dependent, but why would using a PD letter from a school be wasted when applying to that school. The PD will not review every application and every letter. There are residents and faculty who do that. Seeing a strong letter from the PD of their program will nearly guarantee you an interview there. It's a name they recognize and trust to evaluate candidates. If someone did an elective with my program and did not have a reference letter from that rotation I would be wondering what went wrong.... As a PD if I wrote someone a letter and see that they didn't submit it to my own school I would also be wondering whats up.

I would absolutely use your best possible letters for every program, but make sure you if you have done an elective somewhere to include a letter from that school.