Med School Letter From an Employer or Scribe Lead

Med School Letter From an Employer or Scribe Lead

Write about what a professor cannot see: months of shifts, the errors the applicant caught, and the responsibility you handed them over time. Then put the letter on letterhead, sign and date it, and upload it yourself through the link the application service emails you.

An employer who imitates a professor, with a paragraph on intellect and a line about "great potential as a physician," throws away the one thing a work letter has that a class letter lacks: reliability observed over a long stretch, under real pressure, with consequences. This page shows what to write instead, with two constructed letters. If you are an applicant deciding whom to ask, start with who can write a medical school letter of recommendation.

We checked every school, TMDSAS and Liaison page quoted here on November 7, 2026. The AAMC's AMCAS letters page returned HTTP 403 to us that day, so this page quotes no AMCAS format rule.

What medical schools say about work letters

The pattern in these five: an employer letter is welcome as an extra or substitute letter, and it is held to the same format rules as a professor's.

There is also evidence that the letter type matters. DeZee et al. (Academic Medicine, 2014) coded 437 admission letters at one medical school and found that "having an employer or supervisor as the LOR author" was associated with induction into the AOA honor society. It was one of only three of 76 letter features that held up in their model. The scope is one institution and the classes of 2007 to 2009.

What a work letter can show that a class letter cannot

TMDSAS asks every evaluator for "your description of how the applicant has, or has not, demonstrated" a set of competencies. Several of them are things a supervisor sees and a professor rarely does.

Our view: fill your letter with evidence from the middle column, and let the professors cover academic ability. The countercase: if you supervised the applicant for a short stint, or only see them through HR records, you cannot supply this evidence. Tell the applicant a different writer would serve them better, as in how to decline writing a recommendation letter.

Constructed sample: ED scribe lead

Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Context (invented): the writer is the chief scribe at a community emergency department. The letter below is 266 words, including the signature line.

I am the chief scribe at Lakeside Community Hospital's emergency department, where I hire, train and audit our 40 scribes. I have supervised Mahala Torres since March 2024, first as a trainee and since January 2025 as a scribe trainer. I review a sample of her charts each month and work about two shifts a week alongside her.

Mahala is the most reliable scribe I have supervised. In 18 months she has missed no scheduled shift and has covered 11 shifts for colleagues, three of them on less than a day's notice. Reliability on our team is not only attendance. It is whether the chart is right at 4 a.m. Her monthly audit scores have been the highest on our team in 14 of the last 18 months.

The moment I trust most happened in May 2025. Mahala noticed that a patient's documented allergy in our chart did not match what the patient had just told the attending. She flagged it before the order was signed, and the medication was changed. She then wrote a two-line check that our trainers now teach every new scribe.

I made her a trainer because new scribes learn faster with her. She has trained nine scribes. Two of them told me she was the first trainer who explained why a chart entry mattered, not only where it went.

Among the roughly 60 scribes I have trained since 2019, I place Mahala in the top three, on reliability, judgment and the trust our attendings place in her. I recommend her without reservation.

Ruth Salazar, Chief Scribe, Emergency Department, Lakeside Community Hospital

Why it works: the first paragraph gives vantage and duration. Each claim has a number, a date or an incident, and the incident shows Mahala's own action. The comparison names the group and its size. The close is the strongest tier, and nothing above it hedges. Every name, count and date in the letter is invented.

Constructed variant: non-clinical employer

Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Context (invented): the applicant worked in logistics for four years before a post-baccalaureate program. The letter below is 165 words, including the signature line.

I manage the inbound operations team at a regional distribution center and supervised Aleksander Fuentes from 2021 to 2025. He started as a dock associate and, by his third year, ran our night shift of 12 people.

Aleksander took responsibility before he was given it. In 2023, when our safety log showed repeated near-misses at one loading bay, he timed the bay for two weeks on his own initiative, found that two shifts were unloading the same trucks in different orders, and wrote the single sequence we still use. We recorded no near-misses at that bay in the following year.

He also asked for criticism. After his first review, I told him his hand-offs to the day lead left out pending problems. He built a three-line hand-off note, and the day lead stopped calling him at home.

Of the 30 or so shift leads I have supervised, Aleksander is the one I would most want back. I recommend him highly.

Victor Lam, Inbound Operations Manager

The variant says nothing about medicine. It does not need to. It shows judgment, responsibility and response to feedback, and leaves clinical readiness to the clinical letters.

What to leave out

• A job description. One line on the role is enough; the applicant's activity entries cover the rest.
• A second-hand verdict on academic ability. You did not see their organic chemistry grade. Leave that to the professors.
• Medical or personal information. If the applicant told you about a health condition, it stays out unless they ask you to include it and approve the words. The EEOC states that the ADA requires employers to treat "any medical information voluntarily disclosed by an employee, as a confidential medical record" (EEOC). The page on weakness, hardship and disability in a med school letter covers the consent step.
• Faint praise. "Did everything asked of her" and "a solid employee" read as hedges. The phrases page lists replacements.

Format: letterhead, signature, upload

• Letterhead. Campbell says "official letterhead" and PNWU "official letter head." TMDSAS accepts "personal or professional letterhead." If your workplace has no letterhead, ask the applicant which schools are on the list and check each one's wording.
• Signature and date. Campbell requires a signature ("must be typed on official letterhead and signed"); PNWU says letters "should be" signed and dated. TMDSAS accepts "handwritten signatures, electronic signatures (e.g., Adobe Acrobat, Docusign, etc.) , and typed names."
• Contact information and the applicant's name on the letter itself, as TMDSAS requires.
• You upload it. The Liaison services that DO, PA and dental applicants use state that evaluations "cannot be completed or submitted by the applicant or another party on behalf of the evaluator" (AACOMAS). Liaison Letters accepts Word, PDF, RTF or plain text files of "15 MB or smaller" (Liaison Letters FAQ).
• AMCAS (MD). The AAMC's letters page returned HTTP 403 to our checks, so this page states no AMCAS upload rule; the AMCAS letter writer portal guide covers that route.

Check before you upload

1. The first paragraph states your role, the applicant's role, the dates and how often you watched their work.
2. At least two claims come from the middle column of the competency table, each with a number, a date or an incident.
3. One comparison names the group you are comparing against and its size.
4. Nothing restates grades, a job description or anything medical about the applicant.
5. Letterhead, your contact details, the applicant's name, a date and your signature are on the page.
6. The file is a PDF or Word document under 15 MB, uploaded from your own account.

Questions about employer letters for medical school

Can an employer write a letter of recommendation for medical school?

Yes, at the schools above. Methodist lists "A supervisor or employer," and PNWU and Campbell accept employer letters as additional letters. Check whether a school counts it toward a required slot.

Should my scribe lead or the ED physician write my letter?

Whoever saw more of your work. A scribe lead who audits your charts every month has more to say than an attending who worked a few shifts with you. If a school requires a physician letter, you need the physician too, as covered in who can write a medical school letter.

Can a coworker write my medical school letter?

Not at Methodist, which excludes "Coworkers or peers" and lists "A supervisor or employer" instead.

Does the letter need company letterhead?

Campbell and PNWU ask for official letterhead. TMDSAS accepts personal letterhead. Use company letterhead if your employer allows it. If the applicant is applying to PA programs too, the CASPA evaluation adds slider ratings next to your letter; rate only what you supervised.

Get a free review of the letter

Get a free Quick Review of the letter against GradPilot's medical school letter of evaluation rubric. It checks whether your relationship gives the reader a basis for your judgments, whether each quality is backed by an incident where the applicant's own action is visible, and whether your comparison carries its own yardstick. If the applicant is applying to PA, dental or pharmacy programs, the health professions evaluation letter rubric is the closer fit.

More guides for non-traditional applicants and their writers:

• Employer letter of recommendation for graduate school: the graduate-program version of this letter.
• Medical scribe to MD pathway guide: the rest of a scribe's application.
• Medical school letter of recommendation sample from a physician: the clinical letter that sits beside yours.
• All medical school essay and letter guides.

Sources

Retrieved November 7, 2026, except where noted.

• Methodist University School of Medicine, Letters of Recommendation (no cycle year stated): supervisor or employer accepted, coworkers or peers not. The page loaded on our first check on November 7, 2026; a second check later that day returned HTTP 403.
• Pacific Northwest University COM, DO admissions (2027-2028 applications open): additional employer letters, format, two-year window.
• Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, DO admissions (no cycle year stated): additional letters, letterhead and signature.
• TMDSAS, Evaluator Support and Letters of Evaluation (no cycle year stated): letter requirements, signatures, competencies.
• West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, Apply (no cycle year stated): additional letters, paper-letter format.
• Liaison International, AACOMAS Evaluations and Liaison Letters FAQs: evaluator-only submission, file types and size.
• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees Under the ADA: employer confidentiality of medical information.
• DeZee KJ et al., What aspects of letters of recommendation predict performance in medical school?, Academic Medicine 2014 (one institution, classes of 2007 to 2009). Abstract read through the NCBI PubMed record.
• Not retrieved: AAMC, AMCAS Section 6: Letters of Evaluation, HTTP 403 on November 7, 2026. Not quoted.