Shadowing opportunities in Nor Cal

[sharmi]

I am having difficulty in finding doctors that I can shadow. I am from California and volunteer at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara every week.

How did you go about getting shadowing opportunities ?
I even went to the DO website and requested to shadow some local doctors but haven't had any luck.

Do any of you have any pointers for seeking shadowing opportunities in Northern California - South Bay or Peninsula area ?

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[turkeybean]

OP, I am from Nor Cal as well and the way things look now, I will have no shadowing hours by the time I apply. I guess I'll just have to stay away from the programs that have a stringent requirement for shadowing - which I personally don't believe in much.

 

[sharmi]

Please .... anyone with ideas on how to get shadowing opportunities ???

 

[familyaerospace]

Actually I just wrote a series of blog entries on shadowing. They aren't as useful as my PS entry, but I've been collecting advice which has been useful and I wanted to write it somewhere.

Here is the main page : http://forums.studentdoctor.net/blog.php?b=3961

And the best one for you is this one : http://forums.studentdoctor.net/blog.php?b=4003 which talks about where I found my opportunities. It's a lot like networking for a job.

The short answer is this

* ask your doctors if they will let you shadow them
* ask if they have any connections to others
* ask any doctors you shadow for contacts
* use mentor lists (while I mention the main DO list, I also suggest another way to find mentor lists using specialty societies)
* find other organizations that have ANY physician contact information. Like I used GLMA and the GOMA.

So far I have 80 shadowing hours over five specialties (plastics, neuro, obgyn/peds, neph) and I start another specialty next week (family) and I have another doctor (general internal medicine) that I am going to shadow too as soon as we get it arranged. I've recently been having to turn people down!

Always remember to work smarter, not harder and to use any and all connections.