<p>I am a premed freshman and I know I have to get clinical experience. The problem is that I have searched online and called hospitals but everything they have for volunteering is clerical and I would like and think it is best if I get experience around patients. I also don't know how to go about shadowing a doctor. Do I start calling doctor offices and ask them or what? Also I am in Hawaii so if anyone out there is from Hawaii and could give me a heads up that would be great. Thanks in advance for any help.</p>
<p>hey my school hosted a seminar with various deans of admissions including harvard med, cornell med, tufts med, BU med, and UMASS med. They all said that shadowing a doctor is the least important experience because everyone has it and most do it for a short period of time. certainly if u shadow for many weeks months or years it will be beneficial but the msg that they portrayed was to pick 3-5 activities, both clinical and non-clinical, and stick with them for your college career, instead of having 20 different volunteer and clinical experiences all of which you only did for days or weeks.</p>
<p>An example would be to do 2 yrs of research and maybe an EMT for 2 or 3 years, as well as play an instrument or sport for 2-3 years. show your passions and not what you think they want you to do.</p>
<p>if however you find a physician who is willing, providing his patients are willing, to let you get somewhat involved even if that means watching him in his procedures then this may be worth it but if all you will do is watch him file his paper work and write prescription notes, you might as well spend your time doing something else.</p>
<p>Brooks, it's not so much physician shadowing as it is patient care that's a big deal.</p>
<p>As the University of Chicago explains it, they don't want kids who are "hypothetically" interested in medicine and sick people, or kids who are interested just because they've seen ER or Grey's Anatomy. They really want kids who know the reality of medicine before expressing their desire to become doctors.</p>
<p>I applaud your efforts to get into a hospital, and I think you'll find the activities worthwhile.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I'm not very helpful beyond that, as my undergraduate institution always set everything up for me...</p>