How can you formulate an opinion about medical school without having attended? How can you have an opinion about our next presidential candidate if you've never met them personally? How do you know a poop hot dog taste like **** without eating it? There are other ways to get the information you need besides experiencing it first hand. I've asked students on their opinions of shadowing and what they did. I've asked doctors what my responsibilities would have been if I shadowed them. Frankly, it doesn't go beyond the scope of what I already do in my job, so I see shadowing as a repetition of what I do already. If you need it to get a better idea of what it's like to be a doctor, then go for it. I've already stressed to the OP that it should be done. And I've already said it seemed to hurt my interview chances at at least one school. But what I'm saying is that after talking to a doctor for a few hours and asking him/her all the questions you can think of, you'll get a pretty good idea of what it's like to be a doctor. For things like surgery, you can watch it live on websites now, so you don't need to actually be in the room to know what it's like. It's not like shadowing is experiencing what it is like to be a doctor first hand anyway. You follow the real doctor around and watch him. If you want to do things medically related first hand, then that can be accomplished by volunteering in a clinic where you might be able to take basic vital signs and with a little training/certification cholesterol and glucose screening. Plus you'll learn the importance behind doing those things and informing patients of its importance. I don't see why med schools want to see so much shadowing experience on a students record. But again to the OP, do it. It's something they want because, if after all that inane shadowing, you still want to become a doctor, that sheer determination to do the inane as well as the interesting is what they want to see. Plus it does give you a chance for a non-science letter of rec.
