Documenting shadowing experience

[RNtoMD87]

What is the best way to document shadowing hours for submitting to an ADCOM?

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[ZotZotter]

Unless you're shadowing through a program that tracks hours for you, there won't be much you can do except establish a contact that you can list on the activities section in case they want to verify it themselves. In fact, even if your program tallies them, I'm pretty sure a contact will be the only way verifying your hours.

 

[RNtoMD87]

I don't really know of any that I've talked to that track your hours for you. With shadowing and volunteer work, they don't act like its their problem. They're just like "sure you can come watch if you want" or "you can volunteer, but we don't record when you're here"

I mean, if I printed up a word document, with the dates, times and physicians name, and got their nurse to sign off on it and had their contact number on it, would that probably suffice?

I am not sure where to find a shadowing program, these are my colleagues that I have worked with and built up trust with.

 

[ciestar]

All you need to provide is contact information. There is no need to document anything or have things signed off unless that is your personal preference.

 

[ZotZotter]

Didn't mean to imply it needed to be a program!

And yes that might be a good way to keep an official record of it. I'm just not sure of how much use it is going to be because in the case that your hours need to be verified, I think all AMCAS does is use contacted the listed reference on your application rather than ask you to provide some official record.

 

[RNtoMD87]

Yes, but if they are not keeping track, will that present a problem if I also don't record dates and times? I'm sure the physicians I'm close to would just say "oh sure! yeah he did that!", but I like to cover my ass incase a physicians nurse is really precise and crosses her Ts and dots her Is

 

[RNtoMD87]

One more question, I currently plan on shadowing a surgeon, a GI doc, a pulmonologist, and a primary care doc. I had a dentist appointment yesterday, and my new dentist is big on teaching, and I learned so much. He offered to let me shadow him as well, and while I'm still leaning 90% towards medical school, but I figure it wouldn't hurt as a learning experience, and I hate to rule it out without giving it at least a cursory look.

Question is- could it possibly hurt to list it as a shadowing experience? I've heard of people shadowing vets and it hurting them because of dealing with animals. Is dentistry different? Its still healthcare and dealing with humans. If nothing else I could explain that I didn't want to blindly go into medicine without exploring my options.

 

[DrRiker]

One more question, I currently plan on shadowing a surgeon, a GI doc, a pulmonologist, and a primary care doc. I had a dentist appointment yesterday, and my new dentist is big on teaching, and I learned so much. He offered to let me shadow him as well, and while I'm still leaning 90% towards medical school, but I figure it wouldn't hurt as a learning experience, and I hate to rule it out without giving it at least a cursory look.

Question is- could it possibly hurt to list it as a shadowing experience? I've heard of people shadowing vets and it hurting them because of dealing with animals. Is dentistry different? Its still healthcare and dealing with humans. If nothing else I could explain that I didn't want to blindly go into medicine without exploring my options.

I don't see any reason why it would help. You should do it anyway for your personal benefit though.