How much shadowing is a solid amount? How much is too much?

[Penner]

I'm planning on doing about 30 hours of shadowing among four physicians. Would this be enough, assuming I have other, long term clinical experiences?

Thanks.

Please only vote with 2 checked boxes (1 for the # hours, 1 for # physicians) which correspond to the minimum amount you think is considered a solid amount of shadowing for med school applicants.

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[drizzt3117]

I'm planning on doing about 30 hours of shadowing among four physicians. Would this be enough, assuming I have other, long term clinical experiences?

Thanks.

Pa/nurse non trads apply with tens of thousands of hours of clinical experience, you can never have too much.

 

[Penner]

Pa/nurse non trads apply with tens of thousands of hours of clinical experience, you can never have too much.

By "too much," I meant "your time's most likely better spent doing something else to help your application or fulfill your interests."

 

[drizzt3117]

By "too much," I meant "your time's most likely better spent doing something else to help your application or fulfill your interests."

I think 60-100 hours is pretty good. I had 100 or so, I think you get diminishing returns after that; though.

 

[chman]

Edited for poor reading comp. Me no read good.

 

[Penner]

I would say that length of time and relationships made are more important than hours. For instance, I do four hours a week, but I have already been there for six months. That looks better than someone who just puts in a bunch of hours during winter break or something. I also now know some docs, nurses, PA's, etc., who know my work ethic blah blah blah blah. You see what I'm getting at?

So I would say 50-100, over at least a 6 month time span. But, as they say, that's just MO, time will tell if it is the right one.

Okay honestly, I would never get a letter of recommendation from someone who I just sit and watch for x hours. Even LizzyM discourages pre-meds from getting LORs from physicians who we shadow.

I think it takes at most 2 full days to get a pretty good understanding of what a typical day is like for that physician. I think 80 hours each for 4 physicians each is only slightly marginally better than 8 hours each for 4 physicians.

 

[chman]

Okay honestly, I would never get a letter of recommendation from someone who I just sit and watch for x hours. Even LizzyM discourages pre-meds from getting LORs from physicians who we shadow.

I think it takes at most 2 full days to get a pretty good understanding of what a typical day is like for that physician. I think 80 hours each for 4 physicians each is only slightly marginally better than 8 hours each for 4 physicians.

Ya know, for some reason my mind was on volunteering. Oops. I don't really have an opinion on shadowing, except that 100 hours seems like too much.

 

[Penner]

Ya know, for some reason my mind was on volunteering. Oops. I don't really have an opinion on shadowing, except that 100 hours seems like too much.

Ohh . I definitely agree with your stance on volunteering

 

[Hoody]

Pa/nurse non trads apply with tens of thousands of hours of clinical experience, you can never have too much.

Drizz, does clinical experience override shadowing? I haven't done any formal shadowing though I do have thousands of clinical hours. I would love to skip the shadowing part if I could.

 

[runawayclock]

Drizz, does clinical experience override shadowing? I haven't done any formal shadowing though I do have thousands of clinical hours. I would love to skip the shadowing part if I could.

The point of shadowing is to see first hand what a doctor actually does in his day-to-day work. If you get this from other clinical experiences, whether it be paid or volunteer work, then i would assume that shadowing is nice but not entirely necessary.

 

[Superman DO]

Anything under 50 million hours is not going to cut it. . .just sayin!

 

[chman]

Anything under 50 million hours is not going to cut it. . .just sayin!

One million hours....

 

[Penner]

What a relief that more people think 15-40 is solid than 40-100... I was starting to get a tad bit worried my 30~ hours wouldn't be able to cut it.

 

[drizzt3117]

Honestly, when I read apps, what I looked for in no particular order was:

1) does the person have a good reason for going into medicine? i.e. will they quit when it sucks? (and it will)

2) do they really know what they're getting themselves into?

3) do they have the skill set to succeed?

4) do they have interests that are in line with what our school is looking for?

5) will they add to the diversity to our class?

 

[DukeNatlChamps]

I had 30 hours of shadowing experience as well, and my pre-med deans at school said that was too little, considering that I had no other clinical experience. So, if you have other experiences such as volunteering or clinical research, then I think you should be more than fine. But if not, then I would suggest volunteering in the hospital and shadowing more doctors, like I did!

Also, were these 30 hours of shadowing with the same doctor (or doctors with the same type of specialty), or with a bunch of different doctors across different specialties? One doctor that I am close with used to be on the admissions committee of a medical school, and he said it was a red flag if a student shadowed very different types of doctors (like dermatologist one day, and heart surgeon the next). He said it showed that the student was still uncertain about what they want to do, and he would have rather seen more of a commitment from this applicant. I took his advice to heart, and am currently focusing on shadowing orthopaedic surgeons.

Hope this helps!

 

[ErmaBoBurma]

I think it depends on the rest of your application. I was never once asked about my shadowing experiences and did not list them on my apps (I didn't really think it was relevant compared to the other things I had done). However, I had lots of work experience and volunteering.

But for me, just straight up shadowing was not at all important.

 

[muhali3]

0-15 hours is a gas amount of shadowing
15-40 hours is a liquid amount of shadowing.
40-100 hours is a solid amount of shadowing.

 

[Vadoff]

0-15 hours is a gas amount of shadowing
15-40 hours is a liquid amount of shadowing.
40-100 hours is a solid amount of shadowing.

 

[Penner]

Really, you guys think <40 hours isn't a solid amount? (to poll respondents)

 

[familyaerospace]

I kept being told 40 was the minimum and 60-80 to be competitive.

 

[Penner]

Seriously, someone tell me why you'd need to shadow a physician for more than 8-16 hours to get a good feel of what the specialty is like? Unless there's a truly wide variety of patients involved or something (even so, if you don't see one patient that you find interesting in 16 hours of shadowing, will seeing one interesting patient every 3+ days be worth going into that specialty? If you don't like the specialty after 16 hours of shadowing, you probably won't like it if you see another 32)?

 

[Evergrey]

The point of shadowing is to see first hand what a doctor actually does in his day-to-day work. If you get this from other clinical experiences, whether it be paid or volunteer work, then i would assume that shadowing is nice but not entirely necessary.

The nice thing about shadowing, if you get a good mentor, is that you get a peek into how a doctor THINKS. You won't get this any other way than by speaking with a doctor and observing what she does and then having her explain why she did what she did.

 

[LRAccord624]

I had about 50 hours of shadowing, over five days. Yeah yeah I know this is "frowned upon" in SDN land. But it was added to over a thousand clinical volunteer hours, a clinically-oriented job, and a lot of non-clinical volunteer hours as well. I also did some shadowing later on, but this was the bulk of my hours.

This is why it was valuable to do that many hours over a short period of time, and I would like to suggest for someone else to try it (it was AWESOME). I contacted a few different doctors at the same hospital, and planned to shadow every day over spring break. I shadowed an ID doc for Mon/Tues, then in the ICU Tues, then a Neurologist/Neuroradiologist on Wed, ICU Thurs, then a Pediatrician Fri. I got to see many of the same patients in the hospital (mostly in the ICU) everyday.

I was exposed to continuity in patient care through the perspectives of multiple doctors, and I got to see how the doctors worked together (even if just through paperwork and short meetings) to provide the best care possible. I really feel like it gave me a more enriching experience than if I had followed the same physician around for a few days here and there.

 

[FlowRate]

I just put what I did.. about 40 hours over 4 doctors. To be totally honest, a lot of the stuff they do really doesn't mean anything to premeds. It's obviously much more exciting when you're involved, but watching a doc do paperwork or dictate notes is not learning much.

 

[LRAccord624]

Also, were these 30 hours of shadowing with the same doctor (or doctors with the same type of specialty), or with a bunch of different doctors across different specialties? One doctor that I am close with used to be on the admissions committee of a medical school, and he said it was a red flag if a student shadowed very different types of doctors (like dermatologist one day, and heart surgeon the next). He said it showed that the student was still uncertain about what they want to do, and he would have rather seen more of a commitment from this applicant. I took his advice to heart, and am currently focusing on shadowing orthopaedic surgeons.

Hope this helps!

I had several people tell me at interviews that they liked seeing someone shadow multiple specialties, because it shows that you're open minded, and that you've been exposed to more of a variety of experiences.

I would think that shadowing one doctor consistently over an extended amount of time, with a few short shadowing experiences with various specialties, may be a good way to go.

I mean, how are you supposed to know now exactly what specialty you want to go into now?? I kind of have an idea... but as I've been told it will probably change.

The nice thing about shadowing, if you get a good mentor, is that you get a peek into how a doctor THINKS. You won't get this any other way than by speaking with a doctor and observing what she does and then having her explain why she did what she did.

I definitely agree with this. Talk about this in interviews- I had someone ask, what is the most important thing you've gotten out of shadowing? Man I wish I thought of that answer!

 

[manraj76]

I think the point of shadowing is just to see which field interest you the most. You can never have too much information.