Do you think I can put this down as shadowing experience

[bionerd89]

My mother's surgeon was an ostoepathic physician and I was present at every appointment so I was able to observe him while he saw my mother. I even assisted him when he was setting up some instrument for radiation. Do you think I could mention that as a shadowing experience in my secondary application? If I am shadowing a DO next month, could I put the future date down.

Thanks

 

[arainyday]

Personally, I would not consider that a shadowing experience. And I think if you were asked about it at an interview it would sound like a stretch. When you're related to the patient and only sitting in on their appointments, it's not really representative of what that doctor does all day (n=1). Many people have similar experiences with their family members, going to doctors appts, etc. Shadowing is more well-rounded. That being said, you could talk about the experience somewhere else on the application if it profoundly effected you, and the prompt/essay question was relevant.

Also, I wouldn't list a future shadowing experience that you haven't done yet. Simply send an update letter to the school after you've shadowed a bit and you have more to say about the experience.

 

[verynice]

Personally, I would not consider that a shadowing experience. And I think if you were asked about it at an interview it would sound like a stretch. When you're related to the patient and only sitting in on their appointments, it's not really representative of what that doctor does all day (n=1). Many people have similar experiences with their family members, going to doctors appts, etc. Shadowing is more well-rounded. That being said, you could talk about the experience somewhere else on the application if it profoundly effected you, and the prompt/essay question was relevant.

Also, I wouldn't list a future shadowing experience that you haven't done yet. Simply send an update letter to the school after you've shadowed a bit and you have more to say about the experience.

+1
Agreed.

 

[scarecrow90]

My mother's surgeon was an ostoepathic physician and I was present at every appointment so I was able to observe him while he saw my mother. I even assisted him when he was setting up some instrument for radiation. Do you think I could mention that as a shadowing experience in my secondary application? If I am shadowing a DO next month, could I put the future date down.

Thanks

I would not list that as shadowing experience, either. I agree that you could talk about it in your PS, but personally I don't think that it's really shadowing.

 

[DrEnderW]

I would not consider that shadowing experience.

However, as others have said, you could include it somewhere else in your app such as your PS if it helped to motivate you to pursue medicine.