If I shadowed as part of training for my scribe job, can I put that on my app as shadowing?

[adrummingdog]

Hey y'all, I had a to shadow a physician and a scribe for like 4 days before I started working as a scribe. I would like to be able to put those hours down as shadowing cuz that's what I was doing, but it was part of training for the job and I got payed for it. I don't want to be seen as trying to like double dip on my app or anything like that. Should I categorize those hours as shadowing? Overall I trained 4 days for IM and 2 days for Cardiology.

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[DarklingThrush]

Hey y'all, I had a to shadow a physician and a scribe for like 4 days before I started working as a scribe. I would like to be able to put those hours down as shadowing cuz that's what I was doing, but it was part of training for the job and I got payed for it. I don't want to be seen as trying to like double dip on my app or anything like that. Should I categorize those hours as shadowing? Overall I trained 4 days for IM and 2 days for Cardiology.

I’m not sure the correct answer to this. In my case if I was getting paid, I counted it as scribing. If I clocked out and watched procedures during lunch, I counted as shadowing. I only ever considered shadowing at my work to be off the clock, not getting paid, on my own time. Additionally, I only counted shadowing if it was outside the scope of what I would see as a scribe (like procedures).

 

[sgw97]

As a fellow scribe, I wouldn't count this as shadowing. Those shadow shifts were paid, and you weren't there just to shadow the doc. You were there to learn how to do your job.

 

[DrStephennmnm]

I disagree with above. Shadowing isn't meant to show that you're VOLUNTEERING to learn what a doc does. It's to show you have LEARNED and KNOW what he does through first hand observation, which is 90% of the scribes job. That being said your situation isn't ideal given you have only shadowed an ER doc and not primary care, but I would still consider it shadowing to get that box checked. This is coming from an incoming MS1 who was a scribe as well

update: I didn't read your entire description. Sounds like you DID shadow at a primary care clinic and cardiology for 4 days before you started scribing.... that should be plenty to document as shadowing alone, you don't even have to bring up scribing while you describe your shadowing experience

 

[datboi_58]

If I'm honest, you can take as many hours as you want out of your scribing job and list it as shadowing. You probably don't want to put anything above ~100 total hours because you don't need any more than that. Technically speaking, it's lying but like someone said above, shadowing is NOT volunteering. The purpose of shadowing is to learn the physician's job and you do that while scribing. It's a flaw of the system that you can't categorize it as both and I wouldn't doubt if applications automatically get thrown out or put at the bottom of a pile in some schools due to a lack of shadowing hours. With that said, do NOT double dip your hours. For example, if you've scribed totally for 400 hours, then the total sum of your shadowing and scribing (paid medical job) hours should be 400 hours.