My Shadowing Experience - A Guide

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I thought I would post a summary of my shadowing experience as perhaps it would serve as a nice guide for anyone interested in shadowing a doc. </p>

<p>First off, I am a third year UC student who has been interest in becoming a doc in the past few years. I took the summer months this year to shadow a local surgeon I know from a previous not-so-happy meeting involving my seriously ill father, whom he saved after two operations. </p>

<p>At the end of next week - the last of my days before I go back to school - I will have seen nearly 60 surgeries totaling about 175 hours. I will also have seen about 50 hours of non-surgical events such as rounds, some paperwork, and patients. I will have seen a total of about 150-200 patients. As you can tell, this has been an amazing experience and it has really confirmed for me that I want to be a surgeon and has really shown me the personal reasons why this is the life for me. </p>

<p>So here is my little guide about how you can maximize any shadowing experience. </p>

<p>Who should shadow?<br>
I would say anyone in college first of all. If you have any interest at all in medicine, go shadow. If you are in high school, be a little more weary. I say this only because shadowing can be super labor and time intensive depending on who and when you shadow. And high schoolers tend to have a little less freedom with time than the rest of us. </p>

<p>Who should YOU shadow?
Obviously the career you are interested in. If you want to do surgery, follow a surgeon. If you want pediatrics, then follow a pediatric doc. If you do not know where you want to end up, follow a general practitioner or split some time between various kinds of docs and specialties. </p>

<p>More tips - </p>

<li><p>Do not be afraid to ask questions about anything, but typically you should wait until out of earshot from the patient. This is because you might ask something the doc does not know exactly how to respond to, and he would not want to appear without an answer in front of his patient. But ask anything and eveyrthing you can think of. most docs I have met are happy to give you a very detailed answer about anything (medications, ailments, treatment, billing, insurance, death, etc). </p></li>
<li><p>Form a personal bond with the doc. Become more than just a student if you can. You should always show respect to the doc, but do not be afraid to express you own opinion on something. If you think the doc did something in a less-than-ideal fashion, point it out to him (again, out of patients presence). This will not offend the doc, he will like the challenge you present. Most docs seem to love this business because of the constant challenge. </p></li>
<li><p>Use your doctor to network. Seriously, introduce yourself to other docs, nurses, and other staff members who could show you something or help you out in the future. If they meet you through a doctor, they will relate you to that doctor and this should help them communicate a little better with you.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not shadow for just one day. Or just for a part of the doc’s life. If you do surgery -go for the whole day, watch the surgery, go see the patients. Try to get a full view of everything the doc does and as much as he is willing to show you. You will see it is not all fun a games. </p></li>
<li><p>Do not be intimidated or put off by unfriendly staff!!! This may be the most important. I came across many members of hospital staff who clearly did not want me there - either because it caused them more paperwork or because they just were not happy with their jobs. But do not think you are a burden - who are you with anyway - them or the docs? The docs will love you being there. They will love to teach you. In the OR, it was usually the supervisors (aka the paper pushers) who did not like me. All the docs and nurses were very nice and super accommodating to anything I needed or wanted. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Ask any questions you have, this is all still very fresh in my head and I am in love. I could talk for hours about this amazing experience so ask away.</p>

2

<p>Thanks for the tips.
Why did you choose to shadow a surgeon in the first place?
How many times and hours did you shadow every week and for how many weeks/months?</p>

3

<p>How would you recommend approaching a doctor that we don't already know? Like do we call them up, email, go up to them, or do you call the hospital for that sort of thing?</p>

4

<p>I chose to shadow a surgeon mostly because I already knew him. However, I went into this experience just knowing I thought I wanted a doc, not a surgeon. However, once I saw the surgeon do his thing, something screamed out loud to me: I want to do that. If I had not known the surgeon, I probably would have contacted an ER doctor or someone like that.</p>

<p>I shadowed Monday through Friday as many times as I could. This amounted to about five weeks over the course of about two months. This meant an average of about 9 hours per day. Some times this was 4 hours on his light days, and more than once this meant 20 or greater hours on a single day.</p>

5

<p>Zair - </p>

<p>Very good question, I knew I forgot to say something about this.</p>

<p>I would try to find some doctor you have a relationship to. If you want to use your pediatrician or GP, great. If not, tell them you are interested in shadowing and ask if they know anyone who might like having you. Or ask your parents doctor. I say this as it is a little easier to have a better connection with a doctor if there is a personal background somewhere, even if its a friend of a friend situation. Personally, I find older docs are easier to get along with many times as they are very comfortable in their jobs whereas younger docs may be a little more uptight. </p>

<p>That being said, crack open the phone book or google. Find some docs that sound interesting and WRITE THEM A LETTER. Email is quick and easy but they deserve more respectful forms of communication if they are going to spend some time with you. Write the doc how you are an interested pre-med and wondered if you could shadow him or her sometime. </p>

<p>I WOULD try to deal directly with the doctor instead of the hospital. Hospitals tend to be too paperwork driven and there will be more hoops to jump through if you try to reach a doctor through them.</p>

6

<p>Just to add from my personal experience...</p>

<p>I am currently shadowing a doctor at my university-affiliated hospital. I just picked a department that I was interested in and emailed every doctor on that list. Make sure to explain who you are (an undergraduate student) and why you are contacting them in the first place (interested in medicine, want to gain more first-hand experience). The ones that do reply are usually are enthusiastic in having a student follow them around, so you're usually in good hands from then on. I feel like email works best because it is convenient for the doctors and for you. I always get a reply from my doctor by the following morning. </p>

<p>Also, some things that I have picked up:</p>

<p>~Medical students are a great resource. They are very friendly and always willing to answer your questions, no matter how simple. It wasn't too long ago when they were in your shoes, so they love reminiscing about their pre-med days. Residents, however, seem to be more aloof and too cool (probably too sleep-deprived and over-worked) to talk to you.</p>

<p>~Be aware of your surroundings and how to get from place to place. Sometimes my doctor will leave me in one place and have me meet her in another, and I will have to navigate my way from the OR to the clinic to the patient care unit, which might begin on the 4th floor of one building but is really the 5th floor of another after you make a right, right, left, right and cross a bridge. Hospitals love to be complicated like that.</p>

<p>~Wear comfortable shoes. Doctors never sit down.</p>

<p>~Doctors love acronyms. Don't be afraid to ask what they stand for.</p>

<p>Otherwise, thanks for the tips prouds60man!</p>

7

<p>Thanks for all your posts, folks! I think there are a lot of students who have similar experiences as the OP. This is very helpful advice regarding how to make the most of their Shadowing experiences.</p>

8

<p>I'm a high school senior shadowing an orthopaedic surgeon, and it has been an eye opening experience. It has pretty much nailed down my goal of practicing medicine. I spend ~10 hours/week with my surgeon, visiting patients, and then every couple weeks when she has afternoon surgeries I get to spend that day in surgery. I actually got to see two today, a knee arthroscopy, as well as a patella tendon reattachement (it was totally torn to shreds). If nothing else, it's good to see if you can handle the blood. Didn't bother me one bit. But it also lets you see the clinical side of the job, which is quite entertaining as well. </p>

<p>If you want to go into medicine, shadow a physician. If your school doesn't have a program, call around to doctors in areas you're interested in and see if they wouldn't mind having you follow them around once or twice a week. I'm with mine 3-4 days a week for about 4 hours at a time (on top of school), and I've learned tons in the past three weeks. By the end of this semester, I'll have racked up probably ~150 hours, mostly clinics. Not only will it look good to colleges, I'm hoping she can write me a rec letter as well. I'd think that having an MD write a rec letter that you're mature enough to handle being in a hospital in life and death situations is better than anything a teacher or counselor could write about you.</p>

9

<p>ur from dallas. where do u shadow?</p>

10

<p>Richardson Regional</p>

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<p>i see. i was looking into that hospital but didnt kno who to contact to shadow/get clinical experience</p>

12

<p>oh, so you must be from around here as well?</p>

<p>I'm doing it through a program in my school district. Basically just helps us find internships.</p>

13

<p>How did you guys get in direct contact with the doctors? I'm trying to shadow surgeons at the OSU medical center and the only numbers they have is to the doctor's office or emails of people who set up shadowing experiences. Thanks.</p>

<p>edit: never mind</p>

14

<p>DD is shadowing an Ortho Surgeon, she has even gotten to dislocate a patients shoulder prior to surgery (all patients sign off on her being involved and watching, etc) The Doc's office is great about scheduling, she communicates with the surgical scheduler as to her availability for the week, then he tells her which operations are on the schedule, she has to let them know in time to get patient approvals.</p>

<p>Find a doctor through any connection you can- DD is shadowing the doc who operated on her knee after a sports injury. Maybe you have friends who have had something done, many docs are happy to have a serious student shadow them, just find any connection you can.</p>

15

<p>I am a cardiologist in a 6 person group. I currently have a college senior shadowing me. This is my first experience in having a college student(I am on the faculty of a medical school so I have experience in teaching medical students,medical residents and cardiology fellows). I am certainly enjoying it. It is challenging to decide on boundries on what would be appropriate for the student. I certainly would agree that the student should not ask any questions during a patient visit. I do not allow the student any physical contact with the patient. As we go through the day we take some breaks and talk about topics that are appropriate at her level of education. I also ask her to read about a topic so we can talk about it at our next session. She comes in on different days of the week so she can obseve different aspects of my practice(office,hospital and cardiac cath). This varies the experience. I believe this is working well for both of us.</p>