Do I really need to shadow a doctor?

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Fdsa2495

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I am a current Junior and planning to apply this Summer. My question is if I need to shadow a docotor even though I have more than 4 years of clinical experience. During high school I volunteered at a hospital and after high school I was offered a position as a patient care tech. Since, then I have been working at a hospital part time throughout undergrad as a patient care tech, nurses unit clerk, cardiac monitor tech and ekg tech. I have had conversations with many hospitalists and usually assist them with their physician ordets and lab orders. If I am able to recieve a letter of recommendation from one of them will adcoms still think I do not have much experience because I've never shadowed a doctor?

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If you only have experience in the inpatient setting, you might want to do a bit of shadowing in a doctor's office. Furthermore, if the only providers you've worked with have been hospitalizes, you might also look into shadowing a primary care doc for a bit.
 
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If you look on MSAR, 75-90% of most accepted students for each school have shadowing.
 
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If you look on MSAR, 75-90% of most accepted students for each school have shadowing.

But they shadow to gain experience and I'm wondering if what I do would be considered "experience". I mean I could try shadowing but I might not have enough time since I'm working part time and trying to study for the MCAT. That's why I was wondering if I could just go along and say I didn't shadow but I still do have some inpatient experience. But thank you for the statistics, I will try my best to maybe shadow a primary care.
 
But they shadow to gain experience and I'm wondering if what I do would be considered "experience". I mean I could try shadowing but I might not have enough time since I'm working part time and trying to study for the MCAT. That's why I was wondering if I could just go along and say I didn't shadow but I still do have some inpatient experience. But thank you for the statistics, I will try my best to maybe shadow a primary care.
No. That is clinical experience and exposure, which is great. But you need shadowing as well. Just 20-40 hours won't be too hard to get. Best applicants have both. Honestly, it is super easy. Why sell yourself short when you can easily just check the boxes.
 
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You don't "need" to, but I will say if you go into this application cycle without shadowing and the luck is not in your favor for whatever reason, you will regret not shadowing a physician because you will think that's the reason why you are not hearing back from schools.

Save yourself that regret and devote 4hrs a week for a month or two to put it on your application.

But they shadow to gain experience and I'm wondering if what I do would be considered "experience".
That's not true. I shadowed 2 physicians after already having 300+ hours of clinical experience. I wouldn't say they shadow to gain experience, they shadow to see what a doctor actually does. Some clinical experiences don't even involve doctors (the focus is on patient interaction), that's why shadowing is important.
 
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I am not an adcom, but from my vantage point, a few hours shadowing just to check off a box is a lot less impressive than the hours you have already spent in the hospital.

I would focus on GPA, MCAT, and a cogent explanation of how/why your experiences would make you a great doctor in your personal statement.

Again, just my opinion, although if you want to see what an outpatient doc does, that is great.

Edit: this was clearly a minority opinion on this thread! Although I do generally agree that there will be benefit to shadowing a physician and that there is still time to do it.
 
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Shadow a physician or two, you still have plenty of time. Even if that means you cut down on your clinical duties a bit since you have a lot.
 
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Yes, you still need to shadow. There is a reason why shadowing is a different category in AMCAS. Although you may indirectly observe what doctors are doing during your clinical experiences, it is still important to set some time aside where you are only focused on observing the doc. Training to become a doc is a long road, and Adcoms want to be sure you actually know what you are getting yourself into (to the extent that is possible as a pre-medical student).
 
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I volunteered and worked all over hospitals and I learned a lot from my shadowing experiences. You will see and hear things that will resonate with you, frustrate you and drive you crazy (with horror and excitement). It will make you mull over where you want to be as a physician and help you know in very few words what drives you. It is (imho) one of the most critical parts of really being prepared for the clinical side of medicine. It is not a checkbox unless you treat it as such. There are many fields of medicine. Go shadow a dermatologist, infectious disease doctor, interventional radiologist or outpatient nephrologist. Explore and learn about the practice of medicine to keep you grounded through the science of medicine part. And please don't act like this is a punishment, this is an opportunity!
 
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I never formally shadowed a physician and nobody asked why I didn't. If you have enough experience in healthcare, you can demonstrate you know what you're getting yourself into without shadowing. Shadow if you want to see what a typical day is like for a physician in a certain specialty, not because you feel obligated to check off that box.
 
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I hate shadowing, much rather volunteer and contribute.

That being said, I have shadowed, everyone shadows, it would be bad not to shadow
 
I worked full time for two years in two different hospitals and worked full-time for a summer in a third hospital. Still, I shadowed a physician in an outpatient clinic setting for a few days and saw a different aspect of clinical care. And then I went to graduate school, not medical school.

The more you know...
 
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Looks like folks who actually know what they are talking about have come through and spoken in favor of shadowing. I guess there's your answer!
 
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I never formally shadowed a physician and nobody asked why I didn't. If you have enough experience in healthcare, you can demonstrate you know what you're getting yourself into without shadowing. Shadow if you want to see what a typical day is like for a physician in a certain specialty, not because you feel obligated to check off that box.
You will find many anecdotes on this site from people who didn't shadow, or people that did this or didn't do that, etc. but in general it is highly recommended to shadow a physician before applying.
 
You will find many anecdotes on this site from people who didn't shadow, or people that did this or didn't do that, etc. but in general it is highly recommended to shadow a physician before applying.
I know it's highly recommended, and it's not like I'm advocating against it. However, it is not necessarily crucial if somebody demonstrates a lot more clinical experience than the average applicant. And it's basically useless if you do it to check off a box, rather than have a narrative about how it impacted you and your future career plans. I've seen several dozen applicants shadow surgeons I've worked with over the years, and you'd be surprised if you saw how many stand against the wall in the OR and seem borderline disinterested in what's going on, even when the surgeon or OR staff is trying to explain the case step by step. Like anything else in your application, it's only valuable if you make the most of the experience.
 
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Yes, you need to demonstrate to Adcoms that you know what a doctor's day is like and how different doctors approach the practice of Medicine.


I am a current Junior and planning to apply this Summer. My question is if I need to shadow a docotor even though I have more than 4 years of clinical experience. During high school I volunteered at a hospital and after high school I was offered a position as a patient care tech. Since, then I have been working at a hospital part time throughout undergrad as a patient care tech, nurses unit clerk, cardiac monitor tech and ekg tech. I have had conversations with many hospitalists and usually assist them with their physician ordets and lab orders. If I am able to recieve a letter of recommendation from one of them will adcoms still think I do not have much experience because I've never shadowed a doctor?
 
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You don't "need" to shadow, just like you don't need to see or test drive a car before you buy it. But you'd be foolish not to want to. Having a "check the box" attitude is incredibly short sighted. It's like the kid in class who stops listening to a great lecture once he hears it won't be on the test.
 
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Having a "check the box" attitude is incredibly short sighted. It's like the kid in class who stops listening to a great lecture once he hears it won't be on the test.

Exactly this. It makes me sad to think some of our future doctors think in this manner.
 
I did not shadow and was accepted but I highly suggest you shadow for even just 15 hours. It's so easy to do you mise as well.
I had over 5000 clinical hours for 2 different jobs and yet interviewers still asked me why I didn't have shadowing and if I could get shadowing before my name came up for the final review.
Highly suggest you get some hours.
Check out my mdapps if u want to know more.
 
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I had over 5000 clinical hours for 2 different jobs and yet interviewers still asked me why I didn't have shadowing and if I could get shadowing before my name came up for the final review.

I had a very similar experience this cycle. My shadowing was in HS, so I didn't list it on AMCAS, which I now regret. I believe I got asked why I never shadowed at 2 or 3 of my interviews, so I just explained and it wasn't a big deal. I do wonder if there are any schools that passed me over because they thought I didn't have any though.
 
I had a very similar experience this cycle. My shadowing was in HS, so I didn't list it on AMCAS, which I now regret. I believe I got asked why I never shadowed at 2 or 3 of my interviews, so I just explained and it wasn't a big deal. I do wonder if there are any schools that passed me over because they thought I didn't have any though.
I've had this same thought..
 
I shadowed a lot prior to med school, I personally found the experience to be entirely worthless. I shadowed in the ER, a dermatologist, a family doc, an orthopedic surgeon and found all of those experiences to be incredibly boring and not a good indication of what practicing medicine is actually like. I'm an EM resident now and absolutely love my job and I look back at my shadowing experience and realize how worthless it truly was, and how it potentially could have pushed me away from the field despite my experiences not matching up with what it is actually like to practice medicine. This all just my opinion, but I agree with others that it is just a box to check.
 
I had a very similar experience this cycle. My shadowing was in HS, so I didn't list it on AMCAS, which I now regret. I believe I got asked why I never shadowed at 2 or 3 of my interviews, so I just explained and it wasn't a big deal. I do wonder if there are any schools that passed me over because they thought I didn't have any though.
That's interesting. I have technically done lots of shadowing. I've worked in the OR for along time and I have joined doctors from several different specialties (ortho, ENT, OB, gastroenterology, etc.) in their offices and on rounds through the years, just because I wanted to learn more about the whole picture outside of the OR. I also did an emergency medicine research fellowship that allowed me to shadow EM physicians while I was in the ER collecting data.

However, I never listed any of this as "shadowing" on AMCAS, and nobody asked me if ever shadowed. One of my interviewers asked me about myself and said he felt that he could skip the "why medicine" question. n=1 of course, but shadowing did not really make a difference in my decision to pursue medicine, so it didn't seem important enough to take up a valuable space on my application that I used to describe clinical and research experience, teaching, volunteering, and other experiences that shaped me.

But if the consensus is that most ADCOMs think shadowing is necessary, then I would make sure to include it on your applications!
 
Shadowing is important, not so much for the sake of "what does the adcom think?" It's important that you have enough appropriate exposure to make a decision about your future. being a hospital volunteer or ekg tech or whatever is a good start. but you need lots of exposure, to docs in various specialties and environments, to make a sound decision about your future. for what it's worth, I don't think that working with one or 2 hospitalists is ideal exposure. there's a lot more to medicine.
 
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That's interesting. I have technically done lots of shadowing. I've worked in the OR for along time and I have joined doctors from several different specialties (ortho, ENT, OB, gastroenterology, etc.) in their offices and on rounds through the years, just because I wanted to learn more about the whole picture outside of the OR. I also did an emergency medicine research fellowship that allowed me to shadow EM physicians while I was in the ER collecting data!

I think in your case you probably had so much clinical exposure that the lack of explicit shadowing didn't matter. I had some clinical experience, but it was probably on the low side for a successful applicant.

I do want to note that at one school the interviewer was going through a checklist given to him by the admissions committee, and at one point said, "This box asks about shadowing. I noticed you didn't have any on your application. Have you shadowed?"
 
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