DO shadowing hours
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That's a good amount. Do you have more than one specialty? Ideally you should shadow more than one doctor on more than one field so you can get a feel for medicine in general.
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I heard like 20-30 is enough, at least thats what Im shooting for when I update my AACOMAS.
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20-30 is enough. Ideally 50+ shadowing is what you should obtain to be in best shape.
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you think shadowing for about 20 hours and getting a letter is enough?
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Although I have a 100+ hours with a Urologist in surgery and clinic.....I also worked as a scribe where my trauma center is a teaching hospital....Ive worked with DOs...(no letter from specifically), but Ive seen them in action....would this count as a secondary shadowing experience as well?
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I think scribe experience counts something along those lines. You should still aim to get a DO lot however as it'll be a boon to your application as a whole.
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I work full time in a hospital as a RN. I work with MDs and DOs all day long.. I have helped with many procedures on patients.. I work full times there.. How many hours Should I shadow? Should I still am for 50+ hours?
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Prolly not, just get a couple shifts shadowing a primary care DO and you are golden. Realistically you dont NEED it in the sense that others need it to fulfill some sort of clinical experience. But even so, it shouldnt hurt your app by any means. I am sure you would be able to remark on a couple things you experienced or learned while shadowing a DO (specifically taking the time to really know what a DO does kind of stuff), thats all you need really I would imagine.
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Thank you!
Is it more important to shadow one doctor for 60 hours or 3 doctors for 20 hours each?
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I mean again there is no like correct answer. Just shadow in fields that you are genuinely interested in. The idea is so that you know what you are getting in to (by applying to med school) and can relate experiences on your secondary applications and your interviews. There is not necessarily a magic number. Personally I would with breadth rather than depth. Because like lets say you shadow 20 vs 60 hours... like 90% of what you see will be remarkably repetitive within a given specialty. So you will not have really gained much more insight into the field after 60 hours that you would not have already gained from the first 20. So I would try and get like 3-4 solid shifts with a few different docs in a few different specialties. You could go and shadow one doc for 60 hours and then be convinced that you not only hate that specialty, but that you hate medicine altogether. Then you shadow someone else and love it because of the environment or the physician you are shadowing or whatever. At this point in your journey you are not learning how to do their job, you are just exploring. That is why I would think breadth is better than depth.
However, there are several exceptions to this theory:
1) Build a good relationship to get a letter of recommendation - especially one from a DO. This may or may not require more shadowing time with that doc, depending on their mood.
2) The doc actually allows you to do more than shadow. I shadowed a peds doc and since I worked as a med assistant in the past he actually offered for me to take the history and assist with procedures and stuff. This is an extremely rare and extremely rewarding type of shadowing that one would not want to give up. Ironically I had to because of work issues haha, but you get the point.
3) You genuinely have the time to shadow a lot and the doc is awesome and loves having people shadow. Again, dont give this up, especially if you are lacking in clinical experience on your app and you want a killer letter.
So in short, go the 3 x 20 rather than the 1 x 60
imho
