I can't find anyone to shadow

[jorge921995]

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I live in a rather small area with few hospitals nearby, none of them allow for shadowing. I'd go try private practice but there is none, the only place is the hospital. Would simply volunteering at the hospitals count as clinical experience?

 

[NickNaylor]

As long as you get some interaction with patients, shadowing vs. not shadowing is somewhat irrelevant. The key is for you to understand to the best of your ability what medicine is about so that you can make an informed choice about what you want to do with your life and articulate that reasoning well for admissions committees. Whether you gain that insight via shadowing or some other clinical experience is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[moisne]

yeah, volunteering would generally count. Volunteering is what you make of it - you can stand on the side and be a wall flower or find a doc/nurse/EMT (favs) and follow them around.

 

[takeurmeds02]

It would probably work best to try and directly contact individual physicians rather than trying to contact the hospital as a whole (which is what it sounds like you did.). This is how I got some of my shadowing.

 

[Yoshers]

Volunteer in a clinical setting, where you can get plenty of patient interaction.

 

[familyaerospace]

I literally traveled two hours each way to get to my shadowing opportunities as there was only one very small hospital in my area and I didn't trust them. Expand your search and you might find something. I ended up with 400 hours over I think 7 or 8 specialties.