My daughter has contacted so many doctors offices but has no luck finding shadowing opportunities.
When she calls the office staff is not very responsive. Some say they don’t allow it to protect patients privacy.
What is the proper way to inquire about shadowing?
She has looked at scribing positions and medical assistant positions but when interviewing they want someone who can work fulltime and not just for the summer. She still has one more year of undergrad.
She has over 600 hours of experience working with elderly care patients and she is now starting training in neonatal care.
She received recognition for her work and recently was awarded a good size scholarship from the hospital that will be applied to her college expenses. She has also worked on research projects the last four summers fulltime.
So far this summer she is training in neonatal care and doing self study for the MCAT exam. She plans to take a gap year to gain more experience so that she applies to med school one time with the strongest application possible.
@raclut Hope you are not from CA. We are and my D is raising sophomore in college. But she went thru the BS/MD path and decided to go for MD during her HS junior year only. We were not successful and when she reached to few Docs, she did not get any response or got the response due to liability insurance or her age she can not shadow.
But I got the feeling from the BD/MD threads, other part of the country, students are not able to shadow even in HS and many times (including CA) it happens thru friends and relatives who happen to be in Healthcare profession.
For this summer (since more than 18 also), she simply reached out to her Ped whom she had all her 15+ years and surprisingly she told yes and she pointed to the admin dept where many forms and process need to be completed. But that is where we got the second shock. Though she has given, that admin lady not saying any thing though close to 2 months since the paperwork is done. It is a very big Healthcare in CA and chokes with process. There is a saying, some times even if the God gives the blessing the Priest holds it at times. The God Ped was so glad to take her but the priest (Admin) is holding it!
All that I can say is keep trying and reach out to various Docs and you never know when some break thru will happen.
(My D got a breakthrough in the state OK where she is studying. During some Alumni meeting, a Doc came and my D contacted her and she agreed and the process went smoothly. She plans to do during school year also though logistics headache she has due to UG school and MD school in different cities).
We are on the east coast. D is a rising senior in college. She has asked the head of her dept at the hospital to help her but hasn’t gotten anywhere with that. She has asked her premed advisor also. She has looked up the hospital employee list and calls several doctors each day. Usually the office managers stop any further discussion. The scribe and medical assistant jobs are fulltime and do not require a college degree and they will train. When she graduates next year with a bme degree I feel it would be a step back to take a medical assistant job when she can get a fulltime engineering position with a much higher salary. She could save at least one year salary to pay towards med school expenses.
HIPAA is often used as a polite way of saying no. It’s mostly just an excuse the office staff uses to shut down student requests–although some hospitals and locales enforce HIPAA more strictly than others.
HIPAA training is available and it may boost your D’s chances of getting a “yes” to shadowing if she first completes a HIPAA training program. (It doesn’t take long–a few hours, maybe a half day–and can often be completed online. Some organizations will issue a certificate of completion at the end of the training program.)
Mostly, your D needs to speak to physicians themselves, not their staff or office managers who are almost universally instructed to refuse shadowing requests from people the doctor hasn’t approved of in advance.
@raclut if your D is working in a hospital or a nursing home, your D should be coming in contact with doctors. Your D should try her best to open communication with any she comes in contact with–strike up a friendly conversation, ask an intelligent question or 6, listen closely to the response and go from there. She needs to do this even if she is not naturally outgoing or is uncomfortable talking with people she doesn’t know. It’ll be those doctors who have already met your D that will be the most likely to allow her to shadow, not random cold-called doctors.
She needs to network, network, network. If she has a PCP, that’s the first doctor she should reach out to.
D1 did very little formal shadowing since she was an AEMT and had worked in various EDs, including one rotation in an ED in a psych hospital. D2 shadowed in variety of specialties–FM, OB/GYN, several different neurologists, a psychiatrist (who even let her observed several of his patients undergoing ECT), an anesthesiologist who was on the ECT team, an ophthalmologist (her own doc), a cardiologist and an infectious disease specialist. She also shadowed a radiation oncologist who came to talk to the students during one of her summer research programs. (She just went up, introduced herself after the talk and asked.) D2 got every one of her shadowing opportunities by just going up to an individual and asking. She got only a few refusals, and even when she was refused, the person almost always suggested she ask someone they knew. (Tell Dr. X I said to ask them… which not gave her a not just a name, but an endorsement from the original doctor.)
Its very difficult if you are making shadowing requests by cold calling. You need start with your family physician’s, networking with neighbors, relatives or friends. Most doctors are too busy, but if you work through networking, you will be able to do it.
Thanks everyone for your input. My D has worked for the hospital for the last 5 years and her bosses have always discouraged bothering the doctors. When the doctor is visiting with the patient she is expected to leave the room. It is part of their training procedures.
She will try to use other contacts that she has with the rotary club to see if some members would be able to help.
I have suggested sending cover letters with resume expressing interest in shadowing.
Some times you need to travel out of your immediate area. It is like finding a job, even that is no pay. She also can ask the head nurse (if she is prohibited to approach the doctors), to ask some doctors privately. Find some doctors that work in the hospital AND have a private practice nearby.
Even if she needs to leaves the room during a patient exam (which is standard practice, btw), she can still talk to other staff on the floor, and let them know she is looking for a shadowing experience. Making friends with the nursing & therapy staff is very useful. They may be able to suggest which doctors would be receptive to allowing her to shadow. Or even act as go-betweens for her. (That’s how D2 got her first shadowing opportunity. She made friends with therapists & nurses who eventually introduced her to the the resident on the ward.)
Printed resumes will get round binned 98% of the time. Just like phone calls never get returned.
She needs to ask doctors directly. It’s much harder to turn down a request made face-to–face
Since she just received a scholarship from the hospital I was going to suggest to her asking if the committee could help her get in contact with doctors who have allowed shadowing. It is a teaching hospital as well. Next semester she will be taking a course which will provide for clinical experience at the hospital with specific doctors that have developed this bme class with the college since the school is partnered with the hospital for this class. It is an upper level applied neurotechnology class. D knows the professor teaching the class since she was also her physiology teacher. The teacher said after completing the class she could choose to work fulltime in the hospital with this doctor in his lab. (but not before taking the class)
When shadowing, is the student typically in the room during the patient physical exam, or are they asked to leave at that point? What actually happens during the shadowing?
@MIMomma Yes. First time my D did shadow few weeks back for 1 week with Ped-ENT. Doc did consulting for 2 days and 3 days did surgery. All 5 days my D was with her from 8 to 5. Doc was nice and kind and she asked my D to come close at times to see what exactly they were doing during surgery and she explained also. Besides my D there was a resident also during surgery. My D enjoyed the experience. Though before going to shadow on the day of first day of surgery, she was telling her mom, uneasy to face surgery. But she was ok later.
The student can remain in the room the exam if the patient gives permission. I’ve been asked 3 or 4 times if I would allow a student to be present during the exam and in one case during my wrist surgery. For the surgery, I was asked to sign a form (HIPAA release maybe? liability release?) giving explicit permission for student X to be present in the OR.
I’m sure that the exact practices vary from location to location.
Daughter got a call from a dermatologist today that seems quite interested in helping her. She had a phone interview and he said that he has provided experience to other students in the past. The best thing is he graduated from one of the schools she wants to apply to. If she goes there she could do her third and fourth year of clinical training at this same hospital.
@artioverplus Thank you. I agree with you completely. Tomorrow she is meeting with a plastic surgeon to discuss shadowing opportunities. Eventually if you keep trying you get a response.
Yeah she has a shadowing position. Funny thing is now that she has one she is starting to get calls from other offices for shadowing experiences too. What is the recommended hours a shadowing a med school applicant should have?
What is the recommended amount of time a med school applicant should spend shadowing one doctor?
There are no firm guidelines for how many shadowing hours a pre-med should have. Enough so that she has an excellent feel for what the day-to-day life of a physician is like and is able to discuss the pros and cons intelligently. Not so many that it’s ridiculous (several hundreds of hours).
There’s not really an absolute numerical answer to your question. Most applicants seem to have somewhere between 25 and 200 hours.
She should shadow a variety of different specialties, including primary care fields.
As a patient, I’ve been asked for permission to have shadowing students, resid nuts and interns present by several docs. I’ve always said yes and have no regrets.
I agree that asking a doctor face to face, preferably one you have some relationship with us a good strategy. Good luck!