Does clinical volunteering in an ED count as shadowing?

[dnrs]

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I volunteer in an ED so I get to interact with patients and help out ED doctors and nurses with various procedures but I never shadowed outside of this setting. Will this in any way hurt my application? Should I go out and try to actively shadow different specialties in a private setting?

Thank you for any responses.

 

[allantois]

Yes and yes.

Shadowing requires you to formally request a doctor to shadow him/her. You should shadow doctors from different specialties. If you requested to shadow a doctor while volunteering in the ER then you can count that as shadowing, but if you just happened to be standing by a physician during your volunteering don't assume that they think that you shadowed them. Nevertheless, ER is a great clinical volunteering site.

 

[Catalystik]

I volunteer in an ED so I get to interact with patients and help out ED doctors and nurses with various procedures but I never shadowed outside of this setting. Will this in any way hurt my application? Should I go out and try to actively shadow different specialties in a private setting?

You are required to provide a contact with email or phone number when you list Shadowing in the application. Be sure to keep track of information like that and hours of involvement. Multiple specialties aren't essential, but it's a good idea to include an office-based primary care doctor on your list if at all possible. If you get to know the folks in the ER, it should be easier to make contact with other physicians with whom you can have a formal shadowing relationship.

 

[Planes2Doc]

People will often shadow during their volunteer shifts. For intance, during a four hour volunteer shift, you might end up shadowing a doctor for two hours. You can double dip with those hours and add them into your AMCAS separately. You get those four hours of volunteering since they are verifiable, and then you get two hours of shadowing on top of that. Sweet deal, right?

When you interact with the medical staff, that's just a part of the clinical experience. It doesn't become shadowing until you specifically talk to the physician and make an agreement to follow them around, and then add their contact info and total hours to AMCAS.

 

[sunflower18]

I volunteer in an ED so I get to interact with patients and help out ED doctors and nurses with various procedures but I never shadowed outside of this setting. Will this in any way hurt my application? Should I go out and try to actively shadow different specialties in a private setting?

Thank you for any responses.

This concerns me a little bit. Were you trained for this? Is it within your volunteer description that you can do that? At all the hospitals I've volunteered at, there was a strict policy against us assisting with the patient's medical care in any way. We could interact with them by talking, pushing them in wheelchairs, getting them water, etc. But we were told vehemently that we could not participate in procedures or anything of the like.

Before you talk about this on your application, make sure that it's something that won't be frowned upon. I certainly wouldn't want a pre-medical volunteer assisting in procedures on me... And I would be surprised if that was legal. I'm sure it's been a great experience for you, but it's really important for you to ensure that your actions are in the best interests of the patients and that you are not violating hospital/legal policy.

If you just mean that you have done something very minor, like hold the patient's hand during a procedure or helped to roll the patient off a backboard, then you're probably fine. I'm more talking if you mean helping relocate a shoulder or putting in stitches or being involved with an intubation / cardioversion / something like that.

People will often shadow during their volunteer shifts. For intance, during a four hour volunteer shift, you might end up shadowing a doctor for two hours. You can double dip with those hours and add them into your AMCAS separately. You get those four hours of volunteering since they are verifiable, and then you get two hours of shadowing on top of that. Sweet deal, right?

When you interact with the medical staff, that's just a part of the clinical experience. It doesn't become shadowing until you specifically talk to the physician and make an agreement to follow them around, and then add their contact info and total hours to AMCAS.

@LizzyM has always said, and I agree with this, that you should separate your hours and don't double count them. For the time that you spend shadowing, you are not volunteering, so you should not list 4 hours of volunteering -- only 2. I know that you have posted several times about having to play the system and such, but I don't think "double dipping" is very ethical.



Sorry for how preachy this post is! I definitely don't mean it that way! Good luck OP 🙂

 

[fahimaz7]

I would say no. Our volunteers have nothing to do with patient care and don't have any 1 on 1 experience with any of the healthcare providers. With that said, I occasionally eat chocolate from their candy cart.

 

[dnrs]

Thank you everyone. Yes, I did formally ask the doctors if I can shadow them if a particular case interested me and we always got permission from the patient. Also, in the procedures I assist with I do not do anything more than bring an ultrasound machine, hold the light for the doctor and other things of this sort.

I wasn't going to mention it as a separate category and double count the hours, just briefly mention it as part of my clinical experience in this ED. I was wondering if it would be okay or if I need a separate category specifically for shadowing? I have letters from two of the doctors going into my committee packet.

 

[deuist]

If you can get a doctor to say that you shadowed him, then it counts as shadowing.

 

[allantois]

Thank you everyone. Yes, I did formally ask the doctors if I can shadow them if a particular case interested me and we always got permission from the patient. Also, in the procedures I assist with I do not do anything more than bring an ultrasound machine, hold the light for the doctor and other things of this sort.

I wasn't going to mention it as a separate category and double count the hours, just briefly mention it as part of my clinical experience in this ED. I was wondering if it would be okay or if I need a separate category specifically for shadowing? I have letters from two of the doctors going into my committee packet.

In this instance you may count that for shadowing and it is ok to shadow while volunteering so you may double count those hours. The point is if AMCAS was to contact the hospital or doctor for verification, it will all look good on paper as your hours are logged in and the doctor can confirm your shadowing. I think you should separate the two categories because it is not automatically assumed that you do shadowing in the ER.

PS The two letters from doctors in a committee packet sounds like my ugrad 😀