How much shadowing experience do you need?

[frutiaspice]

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Hi everyone, I'm a rising junior and will probably start applying to med school next summer.

Just wondering, how much shadowing experience should you have before you apply?

I have shadowed 3 different doctors for one full day each but haven't really had a chance to do continuous shadowing. (Because of school and other commitments)

Should I try to divide up my time better next year so that I get a continuous shadowing experience or is it ok to have these random sporadic one day shadowings?

Thanks! 😀

 

[ModernAlchemist]

I think the consensus to be safe is 200-300 hours between doctors of 2-3 different specialties. That said, I have about 300 hours from one doctor who owned a clinic specializing in uninsured children and a few others that I shadowed for a couple hours each. I think it matters more what kind of exposure and experience you get out of it than anything.

 

[Geekchick921]

200-300? Overkill. I don't have any suggestions, but you shouldn't need to shadow 2 or 3 doctors for two weeks each, geez.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

40 hours are explicitly required at UW. There is not hard guideline generally, but you should have a good idea what you are getting into. Watch the videos here and read what they say:
http://uwmedicine.washington.edu/ED...PPLICANTS/TIPS-FOR-SUCCESS/Pages/default.aspx

It was made for UW by the advice is good.

One should have a few hundred+ clinical hours, including shadowing, volunteering, and/or work in total.

 

[frutiaspice]

So would it be better to shadow one doctor for a longer period of time to get to know the range of things they do or is it better to get more diverse experience by shadowing doctors in a variety of fields. I feel like both breadth and depth would be nice but I'm not really sure how much time I would realistically have.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

So would it be better to shadow one doctor for a longer period of time to get to know the range of things they do or is it better to get more diverse experience by shadowing doctors in a variety of fields. I feel like both breadth and depth would be nice but I'm not really sure how much time I would realistically have.

I think doing whatever you can to gain the experience is fine. The experience matters more than the breadth, IMHO. Just don't all of your shadowing with one person.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

So you think that shadowing mainly only 1 doctor in 1 specialty is bad? What if you really liked it and wanted a thorough experience?

 

[runrunrudolph1]

I think the consensus to be safe is 200-300 hours between doctors of 2-3 different specialties. That said, I have about 300 hours from one doctor who owned a clinic specializing in uninsured children and a few others that I shadowed for a couple hours each. I think it matters more what kind of exposure and experience you get out of it than anything.

wow

usually 50-100 is a safe range

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

So you think that shadowing mainly only 1 doctor in 1 specialty is bad? What if you really liked it and wanted a thorough experience?

Do what ever makes you happy. Make sure you are prepared and able to talk about what doctorS do at your interviews.

 

[Catalystik]

Hi everyone, I'm a rising junior and will probably start applying to med school next summer.

Just wondering, how much shadowing experience should you have before you apply?

I have shadowed 3 different doctors for one full day each but haven't really had a chance to do continuous shadowing. (Because of school and other commitments)

Should I try to divide up my time better next year so that I get a continuous shadowing experience or is it ok to have these random sporadic one day shadowings?

Thanks!

Hopefully, you are referring to physican shadowing as distinct from clinical experience, which you will also want to have.

Some schools require shadowing, some expect it but don't specify this on the website or have adcomms who feel it's essential, and a few don't regard it at all. To have your application appeal to the broadest number of schools, it's a good idea to have it on your application. Some have a day or two, some have months to years. I'd say about 50 hours is average, but I suggest aiming for 60-80, split among two to three types of physician, of which one is in primary care, unless the physician is a generalist.

Shadowing is a passive observership where you focus on what the doctor does; clinical experience focuses on a patient and requires that you actively interact with sick people, and also familiarizes you with a clinical environment. Shadowing can be done in intense spurts over brief periods, like school breaks, whereas it seems preferred that clinical experience be gained regularly over a longer period to show that you've thoroughly tested medicine as a vocation. Both help demonstrate to adcomms that you know what you're getting yourself into.

JMO.

 

[flip26]

Assuming you have several hundred hours of other clinical experience, shadowing for, say, 40+ hours is enough.

Personally I think the ideal is to shadow a variety of docs. I don't get the shadowing one doctor for a hundred hours. The longest I shadowed any one doctor was 8 hours, and that was in the ER. Most doctors I maxed out at 2 to 3 hours.

 

[SlaskWroclaw18]

What should I look to do when I shadow a doctor. I am only a freshman going into college but my girlfriend's mom is a nurse for a Cardiology practice and she said she can set me up with one of the Cardiologists to shadow him. What should I ask for? A week or 2 weeks? How many hours a day for that duration? 4-5 hours a day during the time period?

 

[VikingLegacy]

What should I look to do when I shadow a doctor. I am only a freshman going into college but my girlfriend's mom is a nurse for a Cardiology practice and she said she can set me up with one of the Cardiologists to shadow him. What should I ask for? A week or 2 weeks? How many hours a day for that duration? 4-5 hours a day during the time period?

Don't discount the option of spreading it out. I personally am trying to spread mine out to 8-16 hrs/week over a few months. The advantage in doing it this way is that even though you take longer to get the same amount of hours, you and the physician have longer to get to know each other. I don't know if this is a good strategy, but for myself it makes sense - if I was a doctor and somebody shadowed me 24 hrs a day for two weeks, I wouldn't feel like I knew him/her as well as if they shadowed me ~10 hours a week for 10 weeks.

That could be just me though. It sounds like you already have an in, and you already have an idea how you want to do it. I'm just throwing an option out there in case you like it.

 

[amistret]

does volunteering at a local hospital count as Clinical Experience?
~Anthony

 

[familyaerospace]

Everything I've seen around SDN was about 40 hours minimum (since a few have minimums), 60-80 to be competitive.

However, try not to just be there just for the hours. Try to learn something. Explore a little. Enjoy the experience. Personally, I am way over the minimum (I'm around 145 hours over several specialties) and now I kinda treat shadowing as a special reward for myself or something to look forward to since almost all of my time has been very pleasant.

 

[Catalystik]

does volunteering at a local hospital count as Clinical Experience?

As long as you have patient contact it does. So don't agree to work in the gift shop or the filing room.

 

[amistret]

thank you very much, it will be patients I am working with.

 

[HawaiiHereICome]

As long as you have patient contact it does. So don't agree to work in the gift shop or the filing room.

Exactly. If you have had pee pee spilled on you or vomit its definitely a real clinical experience

I have over 2,000 hours, half of which is shadowing. It really helps if you need something to talk about for your pers statement, diversity, difficult situations, other secondary questions..

 

[mvenus929]

You need enough experience to be able to explain why medicine is the right career path for you. Some people can nail that down in the 40 or so hours required at some schools, others require more time.

Personally, I had to go work in different clinical settings for about year in order to really be able to nail down that answer. Some of that was shadowing, other parts were doing the boring filing stuff that needs to be done in a clinical practice, or just understanding what other careers were available in the medical field.

I have to say, working in a clinical lab has really helped me in biochem. I could rattle off several tests that were in a BMP/CMP or a CBC no problem, but I often only had a vague idea of what abnormal values might mean for the patient. Now I'm learning the biochemistry of it, and making those connections. That was a random aside... apologies.