Medical 80 hours of shadowing over two weeks enough?

[Question]

The summer after my junior year I shadowed several physicians and providers for two weeks at a specialty clinic (full time). I was wondering if this was not enough or if it needs to be more long-term? The process for shadowing at my school is unfortunately super tedious and takes weeks to even be approved and be matched with a physician, which is why I've been so hesitant to do it because it takes up so much time.

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[GoSpursGo]

Yes but you need non shadowing clinical experience

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Agrees. What other patient exposure do you have? You don't need to shadow long term but you can see if you can do any volunteer work that is patient facing. Better would be getting some exposure to a primary, care, community health, or emergent care environment.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Would try and get some exposure with a primary care doctor.

 

[PerioDont]

Would try and get some exposure with a primary care doctor.

agreed

 

[AlteredScale]

Shadowing is very difficult. Get exposure to other areas including surgical, non-surgical, primary care. Doesn't have to be a bunch of time. But you should understand the overall workflow in these different large areas of physician practice.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

The reason I always suggest shadowing a primary care doctor is that this is the "doctor thing" that you say you want to do. Primary care is the ground zero. Everyone who goes into medical school (IMO) should be happy with becomning a primary doc, and then if they want to pursue a specialty after that, then perfect! But you need to know what primary care does.