A Call to Action for Standardizing Letters of Recommendation

Tavarez, Melissa M.; Baghdassarian, Aline; Bailey, Jessica; Caglar, Derya; Eckerle, Michelle; Fang, Andrea; McVety, Katherine; Nagler, Joshua; Ngo, Thuy L.; Rose, Jerri A.; Roskind, Cindy G.; Benedict, Frances Turcotte; Nesiama, Jo-Ann; Thomas, Anita; Langhan, Melissa L.

doi:10.4300/jgme-d-22-00131.1

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…By making unwritten rules more visible, academic medicine communities can bring greater transparency to the use of LORs by developing faculty development initiatives to support new faculty members with writing LORs that include the implications for what is said and not said in a LOR and developing standardized and transparent processes for how LORs are assessed. Our findings may also lend additional support for the use of standardized LORs [17][18][19][20][21] or incentive to explore alternative methods to be used in the resident selection process. More broadly, our study demonstrates how genre analysis can provide valuable insights into how context gives rise to patterns in both visible and invisible rhetorical strategies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…Despite the foregoing challenges, several studies have highlighted the value of LORs in the resident selection process, particularly for their ability to provide insights into applicants' strengths and weaknesses 14,15 and their potential to predict future performance in a training program. 4,16 Accordingly, efforts have been made to reduce LORs' variability by implementing standardized LORs, [17][18][19][20][21] and create faculty development tools focused on writing LORs. 13,22 Researchers in medical education and other fields have also made efforts to better understand the language and content of LORs and the practices surrounding their assessment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reading between the lines: exploring the unwritten rules of letters of recommendation in the Canadian resident selection process

Rachul,

Collins,

Porhownik

et al. 2024

Can. Med. Ed. J

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Background: Efforts to better understand and improve letters of recommendation (LORs) in the resident selection process have identified unwritten rules and hidden practices that may limit their effectiveness. The objective of our study is to explore these unwritten rules and hidden practices more fully in one Canadian academic medical community. Methods: We conducted semi-structured, discourse-based interviews with 18 faculty members from the departments of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Interviews were guided by sample LORs and were focused on experiences with either writing or reading LORs. We analyzed interviews using key concepts from genre theory and Aristotle’s appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. Results: Participants described how the practices surrounding LORs are guided by unwritten rules. These practices contributed to writers’ use of visible strategies and textual silence to establish credibility, build a strong case, and appeal to readers. Readers rely on similar strategies, but not always as intended by the writers. Conclusions: The unwritten rules of one academic community can impede a nationally-facilitated resident selection process. Our findings highlight how critiques and potential improvements to LORs could benefit from considering the use of visible and invisible rhetorical strategies in specific contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading between the lines: exploring the unwritten rules of letters of recommendation in the Canadian resident selection process

Rachul,

Collins,

Porhownik

et al. 2024

Can. Med. Ed. J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…4 Recent strategies to enhance the residency recruitment process have included the introduction of standardized letters of recommendation, preference signaling, and supplemental applications. 5,6 Because it has become increasingly important to include applicant factors and achievements that extend beyond academics, the number of data points that are required for holistic review has expanded. If each application required 20 minutes to review, this would result in 166 total hours for complete holistic review of 500 applications.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Potential for Artificial Intelligence Tools in Residency Recruitment

Ruiz De Luzuriaga

2024

Cutis

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Decoding competitiveness: Exploring how emergency medicine faculty interpret standardized letters of evaluation

Schrepel,

Sehdev,

Dubosh

et al. 2024

AEM Education and Training

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BackgroundGiven the importance of the standardized letter of evaluation (SLOE) for application to emergency medicine (EM) residency, it is important that SLOE developers and authors understand how reviewers determine SLOE competitiveness. To inform SLOE design and authorship, the authors set out to build a novel theory to explain how faculty holistically interpret SLOE competitiveness.MethodsThe authors used constructivist grounded theory to explore how EM faculty determine SLOE competitiveness. They used purposive sampling to recruit EM faculty participants with at least 1 year of experience in scoring SLOEs. One author conducted hour‐long, semistructured interviews over Zoom between August 2023 and March 2024. Two authors iteratively coded the data to develop the initial codebook, organize codes into categories, and build connections to construct the resulting theory.ResultsThe authors interviewed 11 EM faculty from throughout the United States. Participants described a complex process to determine SLOE competitiveness. They began by contextualizing the SLOE to determine its trustworthiness and value before using various components of the SLOE to stratify and refine their understanding of competitiveness. Finally, when participants noted the inconsistency between different aspects of the SLOE, they used various methods to reconcile discordances and determine competitiveness.ConclusionsThis study illuminates the framework used by EM faculty to determine applicant competitiveness based on the SLOE and highlights several factors that SLOE authors should consider to ensure the accurate and efficient transfer of information.

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A Call to Action for Standardizing Letters of Recommendation

Cited by 7 publications

References 40 publications

Reading between the lines: exploring the unwritten rules of letters of recommendation in the Canadian resident selection process

Reading between the lines: exploring the unwritten rules of letters of recommendation in the Canadian resident selection process

The Potential for Artificial Intelligence Tools in Residency Recruitment

Decoding competitiveness: Exploring how emergency medicine faculty interpret standardized letters of evaluation

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