Office of Student Affairs

Residency Application Manual

Writing the MSPE

In spring of your third year, all rising seniors will be asked to schedule a meeting with one of the academic deans in OSA to review the residency application process. It is recommended that you schedule this appointment for June, July or beginning of August. It is suggested that you make this appointment in a timely fashion if you prefer to meet with a particular dean as slots do fill. The person you meet with will write your MSPE. However, Dr. Parker reads all letters and signs off on all the letters before they are uploaded to ERAS.

If you have not decided on a specialty, the meeting may serve to facilitate the decision making process. We can explore with you some of the things that may be important to you in a specialty, and recommend resources (people, websites, reading) to help with the decision making process. We will also review your senior year plans, discuss the process of obtaining letters of recommendation, and explain the function of the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE). You may also discuss the content and style of your personal statement and ask the MSPE writer to read a draft. We suggest asking a faculty member in your chosen specialty to review your personal statement as well. You will also receive instruction from OSA staff about the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).

Please contact one of the deans listed below to schedule an appointment to discuss your MSPE. You will be asked to submit a draft curriculum vitae (CV) before scheduling this meeting. If you have questions about the format and/or content of your cv, please schedule an appointment with Dawn Roberts at 410-706-7689 or droberts@som.umaryland.edu and she will assist you.

Dr. Donna Parker	410-706-7476
Dr. Gina Perez-Madrinan	410-706-7476
Dr. Joseph Martinez	410-706-7476

Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) was formerly known as the "Dean's Letter" and is a summary and evaluation of your performance while in medical school. It is neither a letter of recommendation nor a self evaluation. Every medical school writes an MSPE for each graduating student. It is a required part of every residency application. The MSPE has a standardized format which allows us to describe your character as a person, summarize your academic career and highlight your best qualities. It includes in full the summative comments as they appear in clerkship evaluations. If there have been serious academic difficulties or disciplinary problems, we must explain them. The letter attempts to present an honest evaluation of your performance in medical school and your assets for residency application. Information directed toward your choice in a specialty is not incorporated in the MSPE, but rather in Letters of Recommendation from the clinical faculty of that specialty. MSPE's follow a basic format, but every attempt is made to personalize them as much as possible.

After meeting with you and reviewing all of the data, your chosen writer crafts the first draft of your MSPE. It is edited and signed by the Associate Dean for Student Affairs for consistency across all writers. Every student will be permitted to read the letter before it goes out and may return to review it one more time if any changes are required. Students may submit changes to correct factual errors, punctuation, etc. If you have questions or concerns about the narrative sections, these should be addressed directly with your letter writer. Any changes in content of the junior and senior evaluations must come directly from the clerkship directors and preceptors. We suggest that you read your clerkship evaluations as they come in and contact directors as soon as possible (and certainly within 6 weeks of receiving grades) to discuss issues with evaluation content. School policy states that evaluation revisions do not have to be considered after that time. The national release date for the MSPE is November 1. Our timetable has all drafts available for student review during the first week of October with final versions prepared by mid-October. With these time constraints, we will attempt to include evaluations from July and August rotations. If September evaluations are submitted in a very timely manner, we may be able to include them as well. Any crucial evaluations that do not make it into the letter may be hand carried to interviews or mailed/emailed to programs. Students elected into AOA and/or the Humanism Honor Society will automatically have this notation in their MSPE. Students who complete CAPP or Medical Spanish will automatically have this noted in their MSPE.

Getting Advice

For those of you who signed up for a mentor, he/she is a good place to start. Hopefully they will be able to answer questions themselves and/or refer you to colleagues in your specialty of choice for more information. Any member of the faculty can help you to think about your career plans. Try to talk to as many people as possible to learn as much as possible about specialties of interest to you. You should talk to any and all faculty, residents and consultants during clerkships to learn as much as possible from them. Most specialties encourage you to meet with the Program Director in that residency for advice as well. This faculty member can be very helpful in reviewing your scholastic record and personal characteristics to assess your competitiveness for the chosen specialty and for specific programs. They can also give guidance on strategies to improve your application and recommend numbers and locations of programs for application based upon their assessment. They will usually like to have a copy of your personal statement, CV and transcript for review.

It may be beneficial to attend one of the Careers in Medicine Brown Bag Lunches on Fridays. You'll get the chance to hear an informal talk from physicians from a variety of disciplines, practice settings, and backgrounds. You'll also learn what their branch of medicine does, what the training for that field involves, and what a typical day in their life is like. You are also encouraged to shadow a physician in your fields of interest to better understand the field.