Rhinology and Sinus Surgery

Letters of Recommendations and Personal Statements for Rhinology Fellowship

Vasan V, Cheng C, Lerner DK, et al. Letters of recommendations and personal statements for rhinology fellowship: A deep learning linguistic analysis [published online ahead of print, 2023 Mar 10]. Int Forum Allergy Rhinol. 2023;10.1002/alr.23153. [Article Link]

Linguistic analysis of rhinology fellowship letters of recommendation and personal statements

The aim of the study was to use natural language processing and deep learning to evaluate rhinology fellowship applicants’ letters of recommendation and personal statements using Empath. A total of 169 letters of recommendation and 56 personal statements were included in the analysis. In their personal statements, females used more words associated with negative emotions, leadership, and feminism. For letters of recommendation, male-corresponding documents had more words of achievement, positive emotion, and trust. International medical graduates (IMG) used more work-related words in their personal statements and had more negative emotions and work-related words in their letters of recommendation. These findings suggest that bias may be present against IMGs and female applicants, however, further investigations are necessary. 

Shreya Ramkumar’s Takeaway: Unconscious bias has not been widely studied in the field of rhinology, and the findings provide one avenue of understanding these biases and where they may exist. Although gender and training were separately analyzed, it would be interesting to identify the intersection of these variables and any possible compounded effect when analyzed together.