<p>Studying isn’t the only thing a successful premed should do. You also need a lot of volunteer work in the hospital, which is right on West Campus. Med schools want to see that you know what actual clinical work is like and that you’re dedicated to patient care.</p>
<p>^ Although in my experience, it might be better to skip the official volunteering experiences at the Duke hospital and opt for directly shadowing a physician. Most of the volunteering opportunities there allows you to have lots of contact with patients, which is good if that’s what you really want. But IMHO, in order to have the clinical exposure that med schools like, you’d need to see things from a doctor’s perspective and those programs give you preciously few ways to meet with doctors. </p>
<p>The only compromise I can think of is the HCEP, in which you volunteer for a semester or so and then are assigned to shadow a doctor in a field of your choice. At the end of the experience, you write a reflections essay or something like that I think. </p>
<p>Alternatively, I have found that some doctors are open to taking on shadows if you just email them. A better way is to ask people like your professors (if you know them well) or PI (if you happen to do research) if they collaborate with or know physicians in the hospital that they might consider introducing you to.</p>
<p>I’ve actually gone all 3 routes-volunteered for a year and shadowed both doctors that I just emailed and was introduced to-and all 3 are ways to “get in the door” so to speak. But personally, I recommend just cold emailing doctors. You’ll get to pick the field you are interested in, you don’t need to fulfill any requirements, and it’s much quicker. On the flip side, you probably won’t get many responses and it requires a lot of motivation and organization on your part because you aren’t doing it as part of a program and most doctors won’t bother trying to set up anything special for you. Just be proactive (which you probably already are) and clearly state your goals and what you hope to learn from shadowing as well as work out the logistics up front.</p>
<p>SBR is indeed correct. You should do Shadowing as well to get into Med Schools. Duke hospital is a top ten ranked establishment, it would certainly be a very helpful thing to get yourself acquainted with its doctors; many of which are world renowned. The experience will extremely help you decide who you want to be and in which field you want to go to. It really helps make the decision easier for one, and the hours of shadowing are priceless to med schools.</p>