Medical Difficult time acquiring physician shadowing hours...

[Goro]

I'm applying to medical school this summer. I have zero shadowing hours. I've been unable to volunteer at hospitals probably due to a previous arrest in 2012. Any advice for how to get shadowing/volunteer hours?
On a side note, I do have volunteer hours in the PT (physical therapy) setting. Can that add anything to my medschool application?

Find out if you can get a scribing job.
Ask your family doctor if you can shadow him/her, or knows of any other solutions.

 

[TMP-SMX]

Many medical schools have lists of physicians that have put their contact information out for shadowing. It's mostly designed for medical students but they may be available to you. Also look on their website often their email is listed on the department website.

As for PT it's an interesting experience but probably not going to help you at all if you have 0 shadowing hours of physicians.

 

[MusicDOc124]

If you're having issues even volunteering, working, or shadowing in a hospital due to an arrest, I urge you to look into whether or not the offense is also something that will inhibit you from potentially getting a medical license. It's more strict for the license with these things - meanwhile you cant even (presumably) volunteer due to the issue. Just double check.

 

[Catalystik]

1) Any advice for how to get shadowing/volunteer hours?
2) On a side note, I do have volunteer hours in the PT (physical therapy) setting. Can that add anything to my medschool application?

1) For shadowing: Besides asking your own physician back home, you might also ask your parents' docs. Or the physician parents of friends. Or, take advantage of the PT contacts you have to ask if they can refer you to a doctor who might let you shadow.

For getting active clinical experience outside a hospital, consider looking into skilled-level nursing homes (not assisted-living or senior-living communities), inpatient Dementia Units, VA clinics, free- or low-income clinics in your community, Planned Parenthood.

2) It depends. What was your role? Did you interact with those receiving physical therapy in some way?

 

[Catalystik]

First I was a volunteer; logged 150+ hours. Then I did an internship at the clinic. In the internship I had almost the same responsibilities as the PT techs. I helped patients through their rehab exercise plan, wrote subjective notes, cleaned equipment, washed clinic laundry, led pool rehab workouts for patients, set up ultrasound machines and electrical stimulation machines, completed a project that signaled to PTs or techs when their patient had arrived at the clinic. My site supervisor gave me an A and I logged over 220 hours during the internship.

Whatever percent of the time you spent interacting with patients sounds like good quality active clinical experience. You could split the hours into two spaces. One for the clinical experience and the other portion under an Internship space with the designation "Other" for AMCAS.