Doctors won't let me shadow them for too long

[septa33]

Doctor 1: 6 hours, no emails back
Doctor 2: 3 hours, no emails back
Doctor 3: 9 hours, really friendly person, but they said they were getting uncomfortably busy so I thanked them for their time
Doctor 4: 2 hours, doctor accepted my request but clearly didn't want me around when I came through so I left 2 hours in


I'm running out of doctors. Just how the hell are people getting 100+ hours? Parents? Relatives? Parent's best friends?? Lying???

Do I have to keep trying and spontaneously become best friends with a doctor and then squeeze out as many hours as possible from them?

I am at a loss. Hospital volunteering is 5000000x easier than this bullcrap, lol.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[asturner91]

You're really not going to get much out of shadowing a ton of hours. You've shadowed 20 hours now and probably got a decent feel for the day to day work of each of those specialties.

Just shadow a physician once or twice for a morning or afternoon then move on.

Alternatively, look for teaching hospitals or clinics associated with teaching hospitals. Often their residents and attendings have shadowing requirements to meet and you're easy hours for them because they don't have to actually teach you anything. Just don't bug the **** out of these people.

 

[mimelim]

You're really not going to get much out of shadowing a ton of hours. You've shadowed 20 hours now and probably got a decent feel for the day to day work of each of those specialties.

Just shadow a physician once or twice for a morning or afternoon then move on.

Alternatively, look for teaching hospitals or clinics associated with teaching hospitals. Often their residents and attendings have shadowing requirements to meet and you're easy hours for them because they don't have to actually teach you anything. Just don't bug the **** out of these people.

I don't think that there are any places where attendings or residents have shadowing requirements. It is hard to believe that being a part of anyone's contract. I'd say highly unlikely for attendings and next to impossible for residents.

Doctor 1: 6 hours, no emails back
Doctor 2: 3 hours, no emails back
Doctor 3: 9 hours, really friendly person, but they said they were getting uncomfortably busy so I thanked them for their time
Doctor 4: 2 hours, doctor accepted my request but clearly didn't want me around when I came through so I left 2 hours in


I'm running out of doctors. Just how the hell are people getting 100+ hours? Parents? Relatives? Parent's best friends?? Lying???

Do I have to keep trying and spontaneously become best friends with a doctor and then squeeze out as many hours as possible from them?

I am at a loss. Hospital volunteering is 5000000x easier than this bullcrap, lol.

Remember that there is a certain cost associated with you shadowing at each of these places. Between monetary costs of getting you setup and the time costs, you provide nothing to these physicians or their office. That having been said, if you have been invited to spend time with 4 physicians and none of them want you around, I'd be suspicious about something that you are doing being the issue. More than half the headache is already gone since you are setup to be there. It is hard to believe that multiple people don't want you around and there isn't something else going on. We have a rather robust shadowing program setup now and the only people we don't have back are those that are disruptive, overtly rude or are playing on their phones in patient's rooms or something like that.

 

[Planes2Doc]

You're fine. And you have shadowed multiple doctors so that's good. This is one requirement that ADCOMs will gladly accept as a checkbox item. If you can find some physicians in the future, then great. If not, don't sweat it. You don't need a large number of hours like you would with volunteering.

And if you're volunteering in a clinical setting, try shadowing doctors there during volunteer hours.

 

[zero0]

Physicians are likely to catch on that you're not genuinely interested in their specialty and are just trying to rack up hours. Once you've shadowed a few times, you realize that their days often look exactly the same and there's not much else you can learn (as a pre-med anyway). Might as well be up front about it and say you just need more hours. Also, never underestimate how truly stupid and annoying pre-meds can seem to attendings. There might be issues with your behavior such as professionalism, appearance, enthusiasm, etc.

 

[moisne]

You could've annoyed them...

I had this kid shadow me at my job as an engineer - and he slowed me down like crazy.

If you can't help, don't get in the way. Don't stand around like a wall paper either.

 

[Satire5Texul]

All of my experiences have been the same. And I dont think any of the problems above were to blame, I was invited to sit in on the affiliated medical school lectures and passed on to shadow a friend of the initial doctor.

So shadowing like volunteering, is good, if we have 1 long-term sustained place.
So longevity with one place is good, Over the course of a long-time ?

Dont meant to piggy-back on the threat, good question/issue brought up I have had the exact same experiences. Watch 3 surgeries. Leave.
All 5 people I shadowed were like you as well Septa

 

[beeboops]

Try a teaching hospital or try different specialties if you really want more hours. For example, radiology is more open to shadowers in my experience because they don't have direct patient contact oftentimes. Also, be upfront about what you want from the experience. Talk about how many hours you want to achieve, talk about your goals and what you hope to learn from shadowing. Finally, examine how you're acting during shadowing - are you asking enough questions to demonstrate interest? Conversely, are you asking too many questions/asking questions in front of patients? Basically, are you exuding professionalism?

 

[bc65]

Make sure you dress professionally ( nice wool dress pants or kakhis, not cargo pants or jeans) a long sleeve dress shirt , solid color, I suggest white or blue, with a tie, and don't talk while around patients. Make sure you are well groomed. Hair combed, shaved if male . No purple hair, no long hair on males, no tattoos visible. When you start the shadowing, ask the doctor to tell you when it would be a good time to ask questions, otherwise you should just fade into the background. Don't ask too many questions.

 

[goldy490]

I got all my hours by working in a doctors office. I emailed a few docs/their secrateries saying I would work 20hrs a week for free filing charts and stuff. Once I was in the office volunteering all the time, I was able to ask many docs and they were much more generous since I was actually help them

 

[ruedjgtc]

I can see the OPs position, there's a strong suggestion to check a physician shadowing box, so you expect doctors to play along. Though, I do think we're only hearing your side of the story, you're also probably a decent person and I wouldn't take it too personally.

But, with that being said, I too struggled to find shadowing opportunities when I was a premed — not to suggest not to shadow, but I and many of my classmates didn't shadow either, a lot of course did. Now, as a second year medical student I can't explain to you how useless I am compared to say, a nurse or doctor. People go to medical school and training for a reason, the hope is to be slightly more useful as an intern. Neither the less, we all know premeds are important (in theory you're our future back-up force) and how much it sucked to figure it out as a premed, so even our medical school has a program to help high school and college students shadow and gain medical experience. A few people already mentioned it above, but you'd probably have more luck with doctors attached to medical schools. Though, it would be erroneous to think that doctors owe you or have a requirement to let you shadow no matter where you choose.

However, I think you may have an "under-appreciation" for how useless, time consuming, and non contributing a premed usually is no matter how charming you are unless you [already] have robust medical experience — unless you're doing clerical work, then yes, the kingdom is happy. And that's not an insult, and I really hope no one takes it as such, if I sound that way I apologize. And really, I'm biased, as I pretty much only see the doctors who are overworked and overextended (safety-net hospital). Maybe, you're awesome, Perhaps in the OP's case, the doctors were in the promised land of having lots of free time, I don't know. Yet, if they're like most doctors, usually the straw that breaks the camels back is adding on one more task to their seemingly infinite amount of things to worry about: you as a liability, you slowing down the schedule, how to appease you as a guest.

In the end, you were with a doctor and got bored and you decided to cut loose while you could, I'm not sure how you don't see that as burning the bridge (if not, then at least pouring lighter fluid on it). I hope you can acknowledge that. Why should they want to hang around someone who was miserable? So they can be miserable?

 

[Winged Scapula]

You're really not going to get much out of shadowing a ton of hours. You've shadowed 20 hours now and probably got a decent feel for the day to day work of each of those specialties.

Just shadow a physician once or twice for a morning or afternoon then move on.

Alternatively, look for teaching hospitals or clinics associated with teaching hospitals. Often their residents and attendings have shadowing requirements to meet and you're easy hours for them because they don't have to actually teach you anything. Just don't bug the **** out of these people.

Like @mimelim noted, I've never heard of such a requirement. You have a *teaching* requirement if you are clinical faculty but this shadowing thing is not a requirement. In addition, its a relatively new thing (we didn't do it back in my day) so many may not understand the purpose or need to do it for more than a short period of time.

Finally, as others have noted, having a student there, even as a shadow, interrupts the day and slows you down.

 

[asturner91]

Like @mimelim noted, I've never heard of such a requirement. You have a *teaching* requirement if you are clinical faculty but this shadowing thing is not a requirement. In addition, its a relatively new thing (we didn't do it back in my day) so many may not understand the purpose or need to do it for more than a short period of time.

Finally, as others have noted, having a student there, even as a shadow, interrupts the day and slows you down.

The teaching requirement is what I was referring to. A lot of the physicians I shadowed could use shadowing time (med student or undergrad) to fulfill their teaching requirement.

 

[jl lin]

Make sure you dress professionally ( nice wool dress pants or kakhis, not cargo pants or jeans) a long sleeve dress shirt , solid color, I suggest white or blue, with a tie, and don't talk while around patients. Make sure you are well groomed. Hair combed, shaved if male . No purple hair, no long hair on males, no tattoos visible. When you start the shadowing, ask the doctor to tell you when it would be a good time to ask questions, otherwise you should just fade into the background. Don't ask too many questions.

^ Why this? B/c you are cutting into their work time--slowing them down. Many patients will do this enough as it is; but they and their insurance are paying to get their questions answered, whenever possible.

You've got to feel this thing out and try not to ask a lot of questions during the pt-doc interaction. Some people might be OK with asking an important, germane question at that time. Others, no. You may need to wait until the interaction is done--between patients--if you have a burning question.

Generally, there is nothing leisurely about HC and medicine. It's a lot of "keep moving and plowing through." When you sense quieter moments, then pick a genuine, intelligent question, and ask it. You are really there to observe. Some docs love questions and teaching, others don't, and for some, it depends on what's going in with their particular day.

 

[Winged Scapula]

The teaching requirement is what I was referring to. A lot of the physicians I shadowed could use shadowing time (med student or undergrad) to fulfill their teaching requirement.

Thank you for the clarification; yes there may be teaching requirement but no shadowing requirement exists.

 

[Turkishking]

Doctor 1: 6 hours, no emails back
Doctor 2: 3 hours, no emails back
Doctor 3: 9 hours, really friendly person, but they said they were getting uncomfortably busy so I thanked them for their time
Doctor 4: 2 hours, doctor accepted my request but clearly didn't want me around when I came through so I left 2 hours in


I'm running out of doctors. Just how the hell are people getting 100+ hours? Parents? Relatives? Parent's best friends?? Lying???

Do I have to keep trying and spontaneously become best friends with a doctor and then squeeze out as many hours as possible from them?

I am at a loss. Hospital volunteering is 5000000x easier than this bullcrap, lol.

Most people just know a family doctor. Shadowing a family doctor is the best option. Especially if he's a family friend.

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

Doctors won't let me shadow them at all.

 

[familyaerospace]

I'm running out of doctors. Just how the hell are people getting 100+ hours? Parents? Relatives? Parent's best friends?? Lying???

Do I have to keep trying and spontaneously become best friends with a doctor and then squeeze out as many hours as possible from them?

I am at a loss. Hospital volunteering is 5000000x easier than this bullcrap, lol.

I would suggest going after specialties you are interested in. I started with plastic surgery because I had an "in" with that doctor as he was mine. The next I shadowed something I cared about. I took one of those "What specialty best describes you?" type of tests and used that to focus.

I had 425+ over 7 doctors/8 specialties. The only two doctors who treated me like how you were treated were the ones I really didn't care about.