Finding shadowing opportunities with absolutely no connections?

[briskknight]

Hello!

I have absolutely no idea how to go about pursuing this. My pediatrician is in a different state, my current pcp is a pa who doesn't know any physicians, and none of my family members are physicians or know any near me. Every time I look up advice on finding physicians to shadow, they always say use your connections, and I have none. My undergraduate pre med advisors have no idea how to get shadowing hours when you have no connections, students usually have connections. Is cold calling offices near me alright? If I tried a hospital, do they have a specific office/person I am supposed to call? For a clinic, do I use the normal number patients use to call in? Am I being a bother to the ma for calling about that instead of my own healthcare? I don't want to seem like an annoyance to anyone in medicine (if doctors find it unprofessional for me to call like that) before I even have a chance to get in there.

Any advice would be appreciated.

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[Orims]

If your university is affiliated with a hospital or medical school, send e-mails to practicing physicians that are part of that hospital/medical school. If not, then just e-mail (or call, but e-mail might be better for some physicians) the physician directly and explain your situation succinctly (pre-med student interested in shadowing, goes to X school). If the physician has an admin, CC them as well.

Good luck!

 

[briskknight]

If your university is affiliated with a hospital or medical school, send e-mails to practicing physicians that are part of that hospital/medical school. If not, then just e-mail (or call, but e-mail might be better for some physicians) the physician directly and explain your situation succinctly (pre-med student interested in shadowing, goes to X school). If the physician has an admin, CC them as well.

Good luck!

Thank you for the advice!

Unfortunately, I do not have a hospital or medical school affiliated with my university. I also can't find any physician emails, so it looks like cold calling is the only answer.

 

[Deltasidearm]

it looks like cold calling is the only answer.

Sometimes that's just how it is. If you have a PCP then that's a great place to start (or calling PCP offices). It's an important field to get experience in and also a field partially designed to have strong working connections to every other field, so a good relationship with a PCP may open the doors to any other specialty you may be interested in.

 

[LizzyM]

One strategy is to go to your school’s alumni office and ask if there are any alumni in the area who are physicians. Then get the alumni office to help broker an arrangement. I once saw a school that arranged week-long home stay with alumni practicing in rural areas.

 

[TravelingMedicine]

I had some luck just cold emailing different private practices in the area. I think it took about 10 or so emails before hearing back from 1. It is a long shot but its worth trying if you have no other options. I used a template email that I could copy and paste depending on the speciality and why I am interested it.

Another way is possibly reaching out to Alumi through Linkdin that you share similar work/volunteer experiences with and cold message them

 

[walnutfloor]

I cold emailed about 50 private practices and received responses from 2. I primarily used Google and Yelp. I wouldn't recommend calling.

 

[briskknight]

One strategy is to go to your school’s alumni office and ask if there are any alumni in the area who are physicians. Then get the alumni office to help broker an arrangement. I once saw a school that arranged week-long home stay with alumni practicing in rural areas.

OMG that's a good idea! My school isn't connected to a medical school but it is one of the top schools that successfully sends people to medical school. There are probably a LOT of doctors that came from my school.

 

[lumya]

I got a shadowing opportunity once by going to see my own PCP, and at the end, letting him know I was interested in medical school and asked if he knew anyone that would be open to having a student shadow. He was incredibly kind about it, gave me his information, and ultimately referred me to a couple of his old med school friends in the area.

 

[briskknight]

I got a shadowing opportunity once by going to see my own PCP, and at the end, letting him know I was interested in medical school and asked if he knew anyone that would be open to having a student shadow. He was incredibly kind about it, gave me his information, and ultimately referred me to a couple of his old med school friends in the area.

That's awesome! Unfortunately, I see a PA and she claims to not have a close relationship with any doctors other than one OBGYN, and I couldn't really get in touch with her so it was a dead end 🙁

 

[lumya]

That's awesome! Unfortunately, I see a PA and she claims to not have a close relationship with any doctors other than one OBGYN, and I couldn't really get in touch with her so it was a dead end 🙁

Are there any free clinics or other volunteer programs that physicians would volunteer at? I also had great luck volunteering as office staff in some of these clinics and the physicians were more than happy to let me go into the rooms with them if I wasn't volunteering myself.