If physician shadowing requires connections (as mentioned in the post linked below), and it is an expected pre-med extracurricular, wouldn’t needing connections be another barrier that many pre-meds face that some others may not face?
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22257625/#Comment_22257625
It’s definitely helpful attending an undergrad with a med school attached. They know pre-meds need shadowing and it generally isn’t a problem at all.
Those who go to other schools can still find people to shadow though - esp back in their hometown or if a hospital is nearby. It just takes more work.
In our area getting shadowing as a high schooler trying for a BS/MD program takes connections - a parent who is a doctor/nurse or otherwise works with people who can help, or sometimes being a caddie or waiter at the local Country Club are things I’ve heard. It’s relatively rare here though.
It’s tough to get shadowing as a HS student due to age and maturity but as an undergrad I don’t think anyone had trouble finding shadowing opportunities. pre-med advising office should help and also lot of students do shadowing with their personal/family doctor.
Fewer and fewer physicians in our area are allowing shadowing…some cite HIPAA regulations as the reason they stopped.
There are many different types of connections. Connections doesn’t necessarily mean family connections.
Many (most?) pre-med find their shadowing opportunities not through family connections, but through connections they make during clinical volunteering and employment. (Because of the sensitive nature of healthcare, physicians often want to get to know the individual first to make sure they are mature, respectful and trustworthy.)
Pre-meds need to network, network, network to find shadowing opportunities. Pre-med can start networking. by asking their physicians if they can shadow them, or if not can their clinician suggest someone else who might allow them to. In some cases, even cold emailing/cold calling works. (D2 shadowed a radiation oncologist who was an alumni of a research program she was involved with. She connected with him when she cold emailed him after seeing his name on an alumni list and asked if he was willing to answer some questions about the MD/PhD path she was considering. He generously agreed to meet with her, answered her questions and allowed her to shadow him for 2 days…)
Shadowing for a high school age student can be problematic due to insurance and HIPAA issues and many sites won’t allow them. In fact, there are sites that do not allow college students to shadow for the same reasons.
In the case mentioned originally in that thread, the “intern” in question was clearly a medical scribe–not a random student doing shadowing.
The doctor D shadowed at Vandy told her that she never did any job shadowing before admission to med school. At Vandy, their shadowing system allows everyone to get in some time, meaning not so much for a particular person.
D called and then stopped by her pediatrician office. No, they don’t do that any more. She also called four other places. No, they don’t do that any more. Two never got back to her.
D wanted to line up some job shadowing for the summer in Charlotte. She was told that you cannot do it unless you have a family member working in that hospital system. Or you are HS student in a specific program.
“To meet the criteria to observe, the student has to be sponsored by their school , or have an immediate family member that is a Novant Health, Inc. team member, or physician partner. “
Yes, I agree with OP’s assessment. In addition, as D pointed out, the students at lower socioeconomic status can not afford to do all the shadowing and clinical volunteering required. Per averages from Vandy, that is all together around thousand of hours (most without pay or with little pay).
Clinical experience doesn’t have to be volunteering. Clinical employment (EMT, CNA, MA, scribe, therapy assistant, phlebotomist, etc) can be freely substituted for clinical volunteering. My kidlets (EO-2 disadvantaged) worked at paid employment jobs to get many of their clinical hours.
I will point out that your D could volunteer or shadow at sites other than hospitals. Public clinics, Healthcare for the Homeless, Planned Parenthood, suicide and rape crisis centers, nursing homes-- all take student volunteers and provide opportunities to get those clinical volunteering hours in. You D doesn’t need to volunteer/shadow at her university’s medical school. The best volunteering opportunities (and often the most meaningful ones) are off campus and outside the college bubble.
Unfortunately America is litigious society. Hospitals have gotten burned and want some accountability in volunteers. They want volunteers vetted before allowing them to participate in healthcare situations where there is sensitive health information on individuals and–especially today-- access to medications and medical devices.
TBH, I wouldn’t allow a visitor from OOS, who no one knows and who is in the locale for only a short period to shadow in my hospital or medical practice (not that I have one) either. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Yes. The entire field is full of barriers and favors 2nd and 3rd generation physicians or the most determined to get in and survive.
OTOH, I think the biggest barrier is money. Everything else - needing volunteer hours, shadowing, research - all possible to be ignored or compensated with other activities since they are primarily for showing interest in medicine and to show that you understand what the field is about.
My D is in HS and is considering taking the med school track. So how do we see if she likes it in the real world? Easy! My wife and I called our siblings, cousins, and uncles that are doctors to set up shadowing in the city most of our family lives in. My BIL has even scheduled her a lunch with 2 colleagues on the admissions committee at medical school.
It’s not fair that others have to network and grind to find basic shadowing and the medical community should work to fix it.
@WayOutWestMom , Thank you for those great ideas on clinical volunteering and shadowing!! As always, I appreciate your advice. D asked local doctors for job shadowing and she was rejected too. Even the Ped practice she has been going for the last 19 years!
@texaspg , for DH and I, even with money, we cannot compete with other parents who know how to advise their kids (when and how to start activities, from HS on) and parents connections. We are not in the field. I literally kept walking around in our neighborhood until I saw our new neighbor walking his dog and asked if D can shadow with him within the general neighborly conversation. Lol. Even D thinks I am crazy, but I am trying to levering the playing field!
CC and especially premed forum have been awesome help!!! Got some good news and bad news today! One Dad whose kids swam with D in HS will see what he can do about D shadowing him! Another office called and said no.
@SincererLove Agree, the world is not fair and level playing field is not same for all students. But all that I can say is it will work out. As long as your D tries what ever possible and does what ever she is passionate and make her unique to show her tenacity and how she can play a role.
We were exactly in the same situation you are now. My D informed us during her summer before starting her HS Junior year she is thinking of going to Medicine. I have no knowledge about US college admission process (leave alone BS/MD or MD application) nor have any background or connection in medical field. I reached out to 2 of my classmates whose wife are Doctors and both informed sorry and none in CA informed she can do shadowing. She applied to 15 Summer Internship programs (so complicated process with LOR from school - it is a huge public school and they are already burdened with college admission process related activities). All 15 rejected even for internship. She did not get any shadowing or patient facing experience. All that she could do when she applied to BS/MD programs is 100 hours of volunteering at a local hospital (Front desk and Gift shop). She had ACT 36, SAT2 800 in Math/Bio/Chem and AP 5 in CalcBC/Bio/Chem. But know she is handicapped for BS/MD and not even interviews she got though we applied wide cast. Was happy that she is very matured for her age and strong though she did not get a break through until March 28th. She got finally 1 admission at OU MHSP (considered low tier for both UG and BS/MD) and she took it gladly with no second thoughts.
Again she repeated the same handicapped situation when she applied to regular MD in the current cycle. This time for different reasons. First she did not know that she will be applying for MD cycle until 1 year back. Because she is content and happy to attend OU SOM where her seat is guaranteed. Second, her college town is away from the nearest city and no public transportation nor she had car. All that she did was 35 hours of clinical experience and another 40 hours from the hospital near our home for 40 hours. But she had 60+ hours of shadowing with different specialists. Applied to 20+ schools but hardly got few interviews. But she got 1 acceptance at UTSW and took it gladly with no second thoughts.
She said her 35 hours of clinical experience at Free clinic is much more richer and gained so much than her 140 hours of volunteer work at hospital and she refused to go there for more hours. 7 weeks and each week 5 hours. it is a non stop work and from beginning to end of patient visit in the free clinic gave her the best experience. She capitalized that experience in her interview along with the research at the school where got selected.
But she did not felt there is a challenge to get clinical volunteer work in OK state (unlike CA) and also age 18 and above helped. She did shadow her pediatrician (she has her Doc for 15+ years) back at CA (Kaiser). But it took 8 full months to complete the application process to shadow just 20 hours.
Near my home within 2 blocks, there are 10+ big name and mom-and-pop shops for coaching of all kinds. Parents willing to shell out $2-10k for test prep and college application process. It is a booming business!
My D as a matter of principal does not want to do any paid coaching including MCAT prep. Because she feels it is unfair for students who can not afford and it is not level playing during admission. Though she knows connections and money helps many students, she wants to be the way she thinks. For example, my friend whose wife is a Doc also a faculty in Stanford and their D got internship in Stanford during 9th summer itself. I am not saying that kid is not talented but it helped when her Mom is a faculty there. But neither me nor my D worry about these and continue our path.
Sorry for the long post, but all that want to say is, just keep trying to get whatever your D wants to do.
Obviously connections matter, kids of physicians in my circle have no shortage of picks for hospital volunteering, shadowing ,research etc. Some even do half of the work for their children’s science fair projects, research and HOSA events. Their kids get impressive LORs from mom or dad’s fellow doctor.
Interesting point… one thing I read on SDN is many of those who went to Caribbean med schools have physician parents who often have connection with residency PDs, so their families are capable of paying and can help residency.
How do they help with residencies? Are these residencies here in the U.S.?
Can’t imagine how they could help with that process…
What does this mean, exactly, for those who don’t have parent or close family connections? Students without these ties do get in to medical schools…yes?
Yes, students without family connections to medicine do get into med school. .At D2’s med school graduation, I counted the number of grads who were hooded by physician relatives (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents) and it was about 1/3 of the class. (One young man had his grandfather, father and mother–who is the Dean of a medical school --on stage with him.) That’s a lot, but it also means that 2/3rd of the class did not come from physician families.
The barriers to medicine are lower for those with family connection–easier access to shadowing, more and earlier exposure to medicine as a career, greater family financial resources, etc, but it does not close the path to medicine for everyone else.
And @thumper --having a family member on staff at a program that hosts a residency program can be a help to Caribbean grad trying to Match in the US, especially if the parent is well- known and respected/liked by other members of the program. PD may interview the applicant as "favor" to the parent and if the student's application package looks reasonable and the interview goes well, they may even rank that student. My DD’s connections: A doctor at our church and someone in my golf league.
There is a methodical way to determine what is important for medical applications, same as undergrad. They give you spaces to fill out a bunch of activities (15), ask you to elaborate on 3 you felt gave you the most meaningful experience.
If you start filling out the 15 and find that you have a lot of activities you have done but no clinical hours, no shadowing, no medical research - not sure it is truly a major issue. If you have volunteered at homeless shelter or a soup kitchen but not at a hospital, does that truly make a difference in human experience of suffering? If you did not work on cure for cancer but worked on an app development instead, does it reduce your capability to do research?
I told my kids and anyone who ever asks me for advice - Focus on classes and tests. GPA and MCAT make up about 80+% of your application points at most schools. There are schools like UT Southwestern that dole out interviews in August without receiving recommendations or reviewing the full application based on just those two attributes or what is commonly referred to as LizzyM score.
I think medical schools take the brightest and most hard working kids and then bore them to death training them with long hours of muscle memory training (not just me - many doctors tell me this since some have kids going through primary care rotations with long hours). All the other things that go on their resumes - just to see if they can fit in.
^^^^Son would agree with texaspg. His connections were nada. No physicians, no neighbors who were physicians and nobody I knew!
The boy’s research was in micro/biochem/genetics using big plants to isolate cancer cells…something like that. What I heard was blah blah blah… Big plants.
He drove around out in the boondocks (where we lived) stopping at rural doctor’s offices seeing if they wanted some free help with the books, insurance or patients. He found a few and he was able to gain hours (clinical) that way.
He volunteered all 4 years of college at the local middle/high school tutoring the inner city kids (Trenton) and many went on to participate in science fairs, something they had not done previously. I’m guessing they all like BIG Plants.
Again, what I heard.
He played football high school and college although not as a recruit rather as a walk-on. He majored in what he really enjoyed and then did it again. His first undergrad only allows 1 major, reason why for his other degrees and they didn’t have the next ones at the first university. Go figure.
What all this has in common is it is all what he loves and enjoys immensely. He did well working hard on his GPA and on his MCAT and GMAT. He studied using books from the library. After being so busy every day studying provided him with some quiet and respite, he really appreciated the blocked time to study for the exams.
He didn’t have any built-in connections, just hard work and the willingness to look outside the box.
Yes connections help in medicine but not always. My spouse is a physician and her hospital system said no volunteering before 18 (he was 16 when he applied for BSMD) and that handicapped him he was able to get 2 BSMD admissions. He didn’t like those choices and decided to fight it out thru traditional path. Now he is seeking his own volunteering opportunities and networking on his own at his UG school’s medical school.
Residencies used to be mainly based on LORs for US grads before not USMLE Step 1 scores are important , but connections help in low tier/community hospitals.