One of the key documents to apply for a U.S. residency position through ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service) is the Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE) or formerly called “Deans Letter”.
Why is the MSPE important for the application?
The MSPE allows the program directors and members to know the performance of a graduate during his or her studies in the medical school. It constitutes a valuable and objective information since it will show the academic performance, experiences, awards and other accomplishments of a graduate with respect of his or her peers. This is very important to understand. The comparison with other students is the most important part of the MSPE since it provides objective and tangible data about the participant. This is why a MSPE should have as much information as feasible like charts, graphs, tables and/or any other source of information.
To know more about the MSPE you can check the following link from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC):
The aim of the AAMC is to standardize the MSPE for all the medical school so that it would not matter which one wrote the MSPE, it would still have the more important information that would allow the comparison with others as well.
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Recommended Structure of the MSPE (AAMC) pdf:
School of Medicine
Date
Identifying information
- Students information: legal name and ID.
- Medical school information: name, location, and any other pertinent identifying information.
Noteworthy or unique characteristics
Provide a maximum of three characteristics highlighting the most salient noteworthy characteristics of the student. This section should be presented as a bulleted list. Each characteristic should be described in 2 sentences or less. Information about any significant challenges or hardships encountered by the student during medical school may be included.
- Characteristic number one.
- Characteristic number two.
- Characteristic number three.
Academic History
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Date of Initial Matriculation in Medical School |
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Date of Expected Graduation from Medical School |
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Please explain any extensions, leave(s), gap(s), or break(s) in the student’s educational program below: |
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Information about the student’s prior, current, or expected enrollment in, and the month and year of the student’s expected graduation from dual, joint or combined degree programs. |
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Was the student required to repeat or otherwise remediate any course work during their medical education? If yes, please explain. |
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Was the student the recipient of any adverse action(s) by the medical school or its parent institution? |
Academic progress
Professional Performance
Describe how the medical school defines professionalism and what it assesses in students. Whenever possible, areas of strength and weakness should be addressed.
Preclinical Coursework
If preclinical courses are graded as Pass/Fail, the MSPE should convey that the student has met all requirements. Whenever possible, areas of strength and weakness should be addressed.
Clerkships (in chronological order)
The components of each clerkship grade and the weight of each component (for example, % clinical assessment, % shelf exam, % case write-up, % OSCE, etc.) should be included to better inform program directors on performance. Whenever possible, areas of strength and weakness should be addressed. Clerkship evaluations are a crucial piece of information for program directors and are considered by many to be the most important section of the MSPE in determining applicants for interview selection and rank order list.
NOTE: The graphs included in this template are meant only as examples. Schools should use their own grading systems or schemes in their graphs depicting comparative student performance.
Tables should follow next. This is very important.
Summary
The Task Force recommends providing a summative assessment, based upon the school’s evaluation system, of the student’s comparative performance in medical school, relative to their peers. Schools should include information about any school-specific categories used in differentiating among levels of student performance. This may, though does not have to, include graphic representation of the student’s performance relative to their class overall>
Sincerely,
Name.
Title.
Medical school information
For additional information about the School of Medicine, please see: <website> or <appendix>.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The MSPE should be asked to your medical school usually by yourself. The best way to do it should be by a written petition. The difficulty depends on your medical school experience granting this letter. If they have done it frequently in the past, yo can be confident that they will not need much information from you than a written petition. If your school is not experienced it will be recommended that you send to them the petition and all the guidelines mentioned in this post, so that they become confident with the instructions and objectives of the MSPE.
Try to work together with the personnel from your medical school since it can be challenging to write such an important letter for the first time. After they have finished a draft there are some recommendations to follow:
MEDICAL SCHOOL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION (MSPE) FORMATING:
If you follow the recommendations mentioned before, your letter should be adequate for presentation to ECFMG or ERAS. However, there are some tips needed to be considered before uploading the MSPE:
- The document must be in Portable Document Format (PDF) and unlocked.
- The maximum file size accepted is 1,200 KB; the maximum image size accepted is 300 dots per inch (dpi).
- The dimensions of each page cannot exceed 8.5 by 14 inches.
- All pages of the document must be scanned in as one file. Do not upload pages separately. Do not include any other document besides the MSPE letter like your medical diploma, CV, etc.
If the file that your medical school prepared is too big or heavy in size being inadequate for upload in ECFMG, please, consider using this link for compressing your file:
http://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf
To review MSPE samples that are adequate and therefore can be used as a template, please, check up the following links (source: AAMC)
HOW TO UPLOAD THE MSPE IN ECFMG/ERAS:
To upload your MSPE in ECFMG and therefore ERAS, please follow the next steps:
- Go to ECFMG website.
- Click on online services in the menu bar and then click on OASIS and go to OASIS options.
- Once in the ECFMG/OASIS dashboard, select ERAS support services in the left lateral column.
- Then click upload and select upload MSPE.
- Read the instructions carefully before uploading your document.
- Select “Choose file” and search for the file in your computer or system.
- Finally, click “upload file” and it will be done.
ECFMG will verify your MSPE in 5 business days approximately. After the verification has been completed you will see the MSPE uploaded in your ERAS application, which means that you will not need to do any other further action. Sometimes the MSPE gets rejected, one of the main causes being copyright and plagiarism. Your letter should follow a template but should be a copy of somebody else’s MSPE.
I hope that this guide has helped you to understand how to obtain and upload your MSPE for the ERAS application. Please, leave your comments or inquiries below in the comments section and I will reply as soon as possible. Good luck!
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