How can an undergraduate student find internships and shadowing opportunities?

[onlyhope271]

I go to TCNJ, and unfortunately the school is not affiliated with any hospitals that provide students with internships and shadowing experiences. For the past couple of weeks, I've contacted nearby hospitals, asking if they provided such opportunities for undergraduate students. All of them don't unless they have a program connected with a school, and TCNJ doesn't have programs with any hospitals. What should I do?

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[xXIDaShizIXx]

I go to TCNJ, and unfortunately the school is not affiliated with any hospitals that provide students with internships and shadowing experiences. For the past couple of weeks, I've contacted nearby hospitals, asking if they provided such opportunities for undergraduate students. All of them don't unless they have a program connected with a school, and TCNJ doesn't have programs with any hospitals. What should I do?

Call doctors in private practices. Plenty of them, don't wait on one to call you back. Then shadow the first one that calls you back. Be nice to them and tell them you need it because you are a premed. Some of the times the nurses/secretaries would not even talk to the doctor so I just walked right into his clinic. Internships aren't attached to a hospital at my university either. What they do is they let you sign up for one, you contact the human resources manager at the hospital, psychiatric hospital, or nursing home and get them to sign you off and you will be good to go. PM me if you need extra help! Good luck!

 

[Dbate]

You can also email them. Luckily for me my school has a med school and teaching hospital affiliated and quasi-affiliated with it respectively, which allowed me to just email physicians and then some responded saying I could shadow them.

 

[MedPR]

Call doctors in private practices. Plenty of them, don't wait on one to call you back. Then shadow the first one that calls you back. Be nice to them and tell them you need it because you are a premed. Some of the times the nurses/secretaries would not even talk to the doctor so I just walked right into his clinic. Internships aren't attached to a hospital at my university either. What they do is they let you sign up for one, you contact the human resources manager at the hospital, psychiatric hospital, or nursing home and get them to sign you off and you will be good to go. PM me if you need extra help! Good luck!

I think it's better to say that it will help you in your decision making process. Saying you need it because you are a premed just makes it seem like you're a cookie-cutter trying to fulfill requirements. Doctors know shadowing is an unofficial requirement, but if I was a doctor I would at least want the pre-meds shadowing me to pretend like they are getting something out of it even if they are just doing it for their application. I agree with everything else though. You have to call and email as many people as possible. Don't worry about their specialty or how many days they will let you shadow. One day shadowing is better than no days shadowing.