Does no domestic shadowing look bad?

[SSSMDt]

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I have never shadowed a physician in the United States per say. I have shadowed a trauma surgeon, orthopedist, and a physician who works in infectious disease (HIV,Tb,etc) in South Africa for a few months however and I have been working as a scribe in the US for a PCP. Should I even bother with finding a physician in the US to explicitly "shadow" and is my application somewhat lacking with respect to that? I feel like if I were to shadow a few physicians in the US it would just be "checking off boxes" and I wouldn't necessarily gain a ton of insight aside from what I already have..

What do you all think?

 

[Goro]

Yes, it does look bad.

You need to know what an American doctor's day is like.

I have never shadowed a physician in the United States per say. I have shadowed a trauma surgeon, orthopedist, and a physician who works in infectious disease (HIV,Tb,etc) in South Africa for a few months however and I have been working as a scribe in the US for a PCP. Should I even bother with finding a physician in the US to explicitly "shadow" and is my application somewhat lacking with respect to that? I feel like if I were to shadow a few physicians in the US it would just be "checking off boxes" and I wouldn't necessarily gain a ton of insight aside from what I already have..

What do you all think?

 

[Doctor Bob]

Hmm... might have to disagree. The scribing experience gives you a bit of insight into the daily work flow in a PCP's office. Depending on how closely you work with the doc. I'm not sure you'd learn more by shadowing a PCP. Basically a scribe is doing that already... shadowing... and writing everything down.

Now, the length of time for that experience might be a mitigating factor. If you've only been doing it for a few months, a longer length of time would be helpful.

 

[SSSMDt]

Im lucky in the sense that I get to scribe for the same PCP every day. I sit in his office whenever we aren't in a patient's room and i've built a pretty good relationship where we discuss different aspect about healthcare and whatnot so I'm certainly learning a lot. But the thing is by the time I apply it'll only be about 5-6 months of scribing.. and although i'll be scribing up to a year after that point that doesn't really mean much to adcoms i assume :\

 

[tea guzzling traveler]

I feel like the prevailing wisdom on SDN is that yes, it does look bad. It's just a matter of how bad, and I think with the exception of a very few applicants, most applicants have something that looks bad. However, in this case it is relatively easily fixed, as opposed to a low GPA which takes significantly more work to fix.

You also said that it wouldn't really help you. I think if you shadow other physicians in other fields, you might be able to get insight into different fields and see how those compare to the fields you have seen.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

I have never shadowed a physician in the United States per say. I have shadowed a trauma surgeon, orthopedist, and a physician who works in infectious disease (HIV,Tb,etc) in South Africa for a few months however and I have been working as a scribe in the US for a PCP. Should I even bother with finding a physician in the US to explicitly "shadow" and is my application somewhat lacking with respect to that? I feel like if I were to shadow a few physicians in the US it would just be "checking off boxes" and I wouldn't necessarily gain a ton of insight aside from what I already have..

What do you all think?

What was the context of the experience in South Africa? I think one wants to avoid looking like a medical ed-tourist with this. It is still a positive experience! Along with scribing, this is good stuff.

Just spending a day or two shadowing in the US out side of scribing would be cheap insurance.