...I will try a few more before I give up hope on it completely..
Don't Give Up!
One of the best pieces of advice that I've heard in awhile (actually, got it from
Randy Pausch's lecture... interesting story google it), was that
brick walls are there to keep "them" away. That means, they're there to weed out those who don't have the persistence to go all out and get what they want, but they're not going to stop
you. If you really want to do shadowing, it's out there. You just have to ask the right person and BE PERSISTENT!
As
ryserr21 said, it's often common practice for docs to ask the patients if it's okay that you observe. This usually lightens the liability because the patient consented to you hearing private health information, but some docs are still scared of the liability.
What you need to find is a doctor who is, for lack of a better term, ballzier. Usually talking to people in high places gets you somewhere, especially since these people are more able to bend the rules for you if you can convince them to. To be honest, getting a shadowing position might require bending some hospital rules. Regardless, work from the top-down, not the bottom-up, because there are too many barriers at the bottom that you'll never get through. Heads of departments (eg. Head of Surgery Department) and residency directors are good people to solicit.
Come to think of it, a residency director is probably one of the best people you can ask. For starters, I think they will be a little more receptive to the idea of you doing shadowing because they know shadowing is good experience for future medical students. Also, it doesn't take too much work on their part because they can just set you up with a resident. I have shadowed attendings and residents, and they all give you a different perspective. The attendings give you the perspective from someone who has been there for a while, but the residents (and interns) give you a much more applicable perspective and can provide more relevant information to you about being a doctor because they were in your shoes not too long ago.
Like I said before, it's all a matter of asking the right person. If you ask enough people, you're bound to get something.
Another thing I forgot to include in my previous post is that if you want to shadow, you'll definitely want to have documentation of a negative TB test from within the last year. If you informally set up the job shadow, the doc probably won't ask you for it, if you set it up through the hospital administration, they will have you tested (or require documentation of negative TB test) about 99.9% of the time before letting you do a shadow. So, in order to expedite the process of getting you into your shadowing position, just get the TB test done and out of the way. They may also want your immunizations to be up to date (really, this is for
your health). The common ones are chicken pox, MMR, polio, and TD.
I hope this helps, and best of luck to you. I'm glad to hear you're volunteering with hospice. That's something I've been thinking about doing for a while. Let me know how it turns out.
