<p>I wanted to do some shadowing at the hospital. How many hours do students usually put into shadowing? I'm sure its not like volunteering right? where you can decide the number of hours and when you want to go in.</p>
<p>Its more about the quality of the experience than the quantity of hours put into it.</p>
<p>I think 6 hours/week would give you a good insight into what a doc's day entails.</p>
<p>Try to accomplish these hours in the same day if you can. Try to get your shadowing organized through the hospital's Volunteering Management. They are generally excellent with setting you up with series of mentors. If you say you like Endocrinology for exa, they start you with histopath labs, show you pathological presentation of different endocrine disorders, then chemistries, how different hormones are analyzed, following by shadowing an endocrinologist during his/her rounds and round-table conferences, case presentations etc, all the way down to patient interaction.</p>
<p>It will provide you a full overview.</p>
<p>Make sure to shadow for whole days if you can to get an idea of the work hours and the rigor of going through an entire day. When I shadowed a pediatrician, he spent roughly 1/2 of the time talking to patients and 1/2 of the time documenting his visits on the computer. As it boring for me when he was typing? Heck yes. Was it insightful? Definitely. It's pretty amazing that even pediatricians, a specialty with low malpractice premiums, can only afford to spend half of their day actually meeting patients.</p>
<p>@norcalguy</p>
<p>"can only afford to spend half of their day actually meeting patients."</p>
<p>What do you mean by "afford"? They have to do paperwork carefully so as not to get sued or malpractice insurance premiums go up if you see more patients?</p>
<p>He would basically meet with most patients for 15 minutes and then spend 15 minutes afterwards documenting literally every single thing that was said during the meeting so the patients can't sue him afterwards. This basically went on during the entire working day with him alternating between meeting with patients and typing on the computer.</p>
<p>Okay, so how do I go about elaborating my shadowing experience since my hospital says that for high school students, it's usually a one-time experience?
How many times have you guys gone in to shadow one physician? and did you guys also have to fill out forms and met all the health requirements before shadowing?</p>
<p>yeah, u just have to fill up some initial forms saying that u r registered as a volunteer....and after that, I shadowed at Pharmacy and Radiology Dept for 60+ hours. (I LOVED the RAdiology dept, since I actually shadowed a radiologist who wanted me real bad to get the best out of my experience)
at the pharm dept, I also worked on a Anti-dote survey and poison/drug/toxin key which was freakn' awesome.......u can always have something to do...just go and explore! :)</p>
<p>Depends on your school hours and whether you can take time off in your Senior year toward shadowing or not.</p>
<p>If your school allows Sr Experience in your Sr year of HS, you can select a work day and spend the entire day at the hospital.</p>
<p>If your school does not allow you a day away from school, try shadowing on a weekend or after school.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>