intense shadowing=clinical experience?

[gatorade848]

---

Members do not see this ad.

the summer before junior year I shadowed the chief of thoraic surgery at a top 20 med school. it was a three week affair 4 days a week from 7-5. I pretty much experienced the A-Zs of patient interactions in a surgical environment; first with the surgeon and his team of residents/med students interviewing the patients at initial appointment scheduling the surgery. Then the actual surgery with various operations/robotic procedures. Finally the post-operation phase going on rounds visiting the same patients.

It wasnt like I just stood there passively observing... during appointment phase I would sometime chat with the patients and go over the clinical symptoms they were having, then the entire surgical team would come together and plan out the surgery. During the operation the surgeon would literally at times toss me a piece of tissue he just took out and ask me to try ID the tumor/cancer and its location. After that during rounds we would all check on the patient asking how he was doing etc... Sometimes the patients and their families would shake my hand and say "thank you doctor" 😎

Learned a crap load of stuff about patient/physician interaction and the importance of post-surgical care. A patient had a successful surgery but ended up brain dead days later after nurses forgot to give him his medicine and left him by himself in the hallway for hours. When I left the family was planning on suing the hospital. I really dont see how everything I experienced is not clinical experience just because its "shadowing" according to some people... I mean I squeezed cancer patient's lung lobes looking for tumors after lobectomies, that has to be some legit "clinical experience/patient interaction" lol

 

[apumic]

the summer before junior year I shadowed the chief of thoraic surgery at a top 20 med school. it was a three week affair 4 days a week from 7-5. I pretty much experienced the A-Zs of patient interactions in a surgical environment; first with the surgeon and his team of residents/med students interviewing the patients at initial appointment scheduling the surgery. Then the actual surgery with various operations/robotic procedures. Finally the post-operation phase going on rounds visiting the same patients.

It wasnt like I just stood there passively observing... during appointment phase I would sometime chat with the patients and go over the clinical symptoms they were having, then the entire surgical team would come together and plan out the surgery. During the operation the surgeon would literally at times toss me a piece of tissue he just took out and ask me to try ID the tumor/cancer and its location. After that during rounds we would all check on the patient asking how he was doing etc... Sometimes the patients and their families would shake my hand and say "thank you doctor" 😎

Learned a crap load of stuff about patient/physician interaction and the importance of post-surgical care. A patient had a successful surgery but ended up brain dead days later after nurses forgot to give him his medicine and left him by himself in the hallway for hours. When I left the family was planning on suing the hospital. I really dont see how everything I experienced is not clinical experience just because its "shadowing" according to some people... I mean I squeezed cancer patient's lung lobes looking for tumors after lobectomies, that has to be some legit "clinical experience/patient interaction" lol

Aspects of it were clinical in nature and sound like they went beyond the traditional criteria for "shadowing." Nevertheless, it was such a short term experience that it would not fulfill the clinical experience criteria of most schools. It is a good thing to have on your tool belt, but it's not sufficient to qualify as your primary clinical experience. What you did sounds similar to the level of clinical experience a scribe might get, which is some great stuff, but it's still more of a shadowing-clinical experience hybrid. Get some clinical experience where you are interacting w/ pts independently as well.

It's also noteworthy that if this is your only experience, it may sound like all you are interested in is surgery. Broaden your horizons before interview time -- it'll serve you well.

 

[gatorade848]

Aspects of it were clinical in nature and sound like they went beyond the traditional criteria for "shadowing." Nevertheless, it was such a short term experience that it would not fulfill the clinical experience criteria of most schools. It is a good thing to have on your tool belt, but it's not sufficient to qualify as your primary clinical experience. What you did sounds similar to the level of clinical experience a scribe might get, which is some great stuff, but it's still more of a shadowing-clinical experience hybrid. Get some clinical experience where you are interacting w/ pts independently as well.

It's also noteworthy that if this is your only experience, it may sound like all you are interested in is surgery. Broaden your horizons before interview time -- it'll serve you well.

how many hours is preferred? I did 10 hour days for around 12 days so thats 120 hours of shadowing/clinical stuff. I am a senior applying this summer so when I heard this may not be clinical I kinda freaked out a bit since i am running out of time... I got other shadowing stuff too so thats not my only experience with specialties.

 

[chrisski]

how did you set up such an incredible shadowing opportunity. Connections, or a random email. I am curious.

 

[apumic]

how many hours is preferred? I did 10 hour days for around 12 days so thats 120 hours of shadowing/clinical stuff. I am a senior applying this summer so when I heard this may not be clinical I kinda freaked out a bit since i am running out of time... I got other shadowing stuff too so thats not my only experience with specialties.

It's school-dependent. Many want 200+, some as high as 500+. The big thing is length of experience, though. Four intense weeks at 60 hrs/wk (240 hrs) is not going to be seen as equivalent to 12 months at 4 hrs/wk (200 hrs). Commitment and quality of experience far outweigh quantity. Your 4 weeks are potentially great in terms of quality but the length of commitment is missing. Additionally, part of clinical experience is the volunteer and leadership elements. These both appear to be missing from your experience and would need to be shown elsewhere in your app.

 

[apumic]

how did you set up such an incredible shadowing opportunity. Connections, or a random email. I am curious.

Sounded like an internship program to me or via connections. I doubt a random email w/o someone else's support would typically get you in for that type of experience.

 

[MightyMoose]

Sounds like a great shadowing experience and I'm sure you can get some good mileage out of that experience during interviews, etc..

If it was not a formal internship, I would probably list it as shadowing experience, but be sure to detail what you did AND got out of the experience.

 

[Catalystik]

As impactful as your three-week intense experience might have been, adcomms generally don't want to see someone impulsively deciding that medicine is a good career. They will have more respect for an application that reflects a thoughtful consideration of medicine where the applicant tested such a career over a prolonged period of time for "fit" with a variety of clinically-oriented activities. Longevity in some of these activities is key.

The average applicant has about 1.5 years of clinical experience where they interact with sick people, with shadowing in addition to that. Half of applicants have less. You'd be well-advised to start gaining some interactive clinical experience in a medical environment (through volunteering, work, or clinical research) as soon as possible and continuing it through your application year in the hopes that adcomms will be swayed positively by your update letters.

Hopefully, you also have some research, leadership, and /or teaching activities in addition to demonstrate other qualities that adcomms like to see in future physicians.

 

[raltima07]

Yea, thats not clinical in the strictest sense - you still have time to fix it

 

[NewAndImproved]

I think you are getting some bad advice in this thread. Your experience sounds like a great one. If the major concern here is that it was only for three weeks, then don't say that on your application! Say you spent 120 hours with a surgeon and did x, y, z. It's your application - paint yourself in the best light possible. For what it's worth, I did far less and got plenty of interviews/acceptances. Keep up the good work.

 

[mystifire]

To the people who are saying that this is not clinical: that is the most ridiculous thing I have heard all week. This IS a clinical experience, no debate.

Anyway, if this is your only clinical experience then you should find different ones that you can participate in for a length of time beyond 3 weeks.

 

[flakpilot]

I was actually thinking about this. I was thinking of both shadowing 2 pediatricians (started last week) and volunteering 4hs/wk at the same clinic I did 4hs/wk of volunteering at the ER for 10 months on 2009. The thing is that from shadowing these docs for 8hs this week I think I learned way more than what I learned at the ER. Sure at the ER I met tons of patients and got to see some cool stuff, but these 2 docs actually have taken the time to explain stuff to me and let me take the temp, weight, etc. Of the kids.
Also, through these docs I met a surgeon who will let me shadow him for a couple of surgeries. So to me, this experience is way more valuable than the ER one.

Anyways, what I decided was to keep shadowing these docs 8hs/wk. If I continue doing this and shadow the other doc, I'll have +100 hs of shadowing by May. Mind however, that I have a bunch of other medical related EC's (I attended med school in another country for 1.5 years, volunteered at a hospital there, etc. You can look at my mdapps if you like) so I'm absolutely sure I want to do medicine and I believe my CV reflects that very well.

So in your case OP, I understand you completely but if shadowing is your only clinical experience and it was for only about 3 wks, you definitely need to get your hands on to some volunteering at an hospital, hospice or something like that in my opinion. That way you have a more solid resume and you got some clinical volunteering going on while applying.

Hope this helps!

Anyone with an opinion about my case, I'm all ears as well 🙂.

 

[apumic]

To the people who are saying that this is not clinical: that is the most ridiculous thing I have heard all week. This IS a clinical experience, no debate.

Anyway, if this is your only clinical experience then you should find different ones that you can participate in for a length of time beyond 3 weeks.

First off, it is somewhat clinical. There are aspects of clinical experience here, but it does not fully fit the criteria used by some schools. In a loose sense, it's clinical. In a strict sense (i.e., the "have at least some level of responsibility for patient outcomes" sense), it just doesn't stand up. The fact is that the OP never worked independently from what I can tell. It appears everything was super-supervised by the doc and the OP did nothing but interact with pts on occasion. Further, this is such a short experience that it simply doesn't make an impact like a long-term commitment does, as is explained by Catalystik below:
(And if you're not sure about Catalystik's credentials for giving the response given, maybe you should do a little searching or check Catalystik's profile )

As impactful as your three-week intense experience might have been, adcomms generally don't want to see someone impulsively deciding that medicine is a good career. They will have more respect for an application that reflects a thoughtful consideration of medicine where the applicant tested such a career over a prolonged period of time for "fit" with a variety of clinically-oriented activities. Longevity in some of these activities is key.

The average applicant has about 1.5 years of clinical experience where they interact with sick people, with shadowing in addition to that. Half of applicants have less. You'd be well-advised to start gaining some interactive clinical experience in a medical environment (through volunteering, work, or clinical research) as soon as possible and continuing it through your application year in the hopes that adcomms will be swayed positively by your update letters.

Hopefully, you also have some research, leadership, and /or teaching activities in addition to demonstrate other qualities that adcomms like to see in future physicians.

I think you are getting some bad advice in this thread. Your experience sounds like a great one. If the major concern here is that it was only for three weeks, then don't say that on your application! Say you spent 120 hours with a surgeon and did x, y, z. It's your application - paint yourself in the best light possible. For what it's worth, I did far less and got plenty of interviews/acceptances. Keep up the good work.

I don't think anyone said it wasn't a great one -- simply that it wasn't sufficient in and of itself. The OP's post could imply that this is his/her main clinical experience. If it is, then this is grossly underqualifying him/her. If it is supplemental to something like a year of clinical research or even a year as an ED volunteer, then it's an awesome experience to have.

BTW, you can't say you spent X number of hrs on your application. The app EC section isn't designed that way. They want dates and numbers of hrs/wk (average). This makes enter things like shadowing quite awkward (since most people don't shadow regularly; they do it in small spurts here and there). Further, it is only to the month so a 3 week experience isn't even going to fill an entire month. It's possible it'll look like a 2 month experience that way, but even so, it'll look suspect.

 

[flakpilot]

I was actually thinking about this. I was thinking of both shadowing 2 pediatricians (started last week) and volunteering 4hs/wk at the same clinic I did 4hs/wk of volunteering at the ER for 10 months on 2009. The thing is that from shadowing these docs for 8hs this week I think I learned way more than what I learned at the ER. Sure at the ER I met tons of patients and got to see some cool stuff, but these 2 docs actually have taken the time to explain stuff to me and let me take the temp, weight, etc. Of the kids.
Also, through these docs I met a surgeon who will let me shadow him for a couple of surgeries. So to me, this experience is way more valuable than the ER one.

Anyways, what I decided was to keep shadowing these docs 8hs/wk. If I continue doing this and shadow the other doc, I'll have +100 hs of shadowing by May. Mind however, that I have a bunch of other medical related EC's (I attended med school in another country for 1.5 years, volunteered at a hospital there, etc. You can look at my mdapps if you like) so I'm absolutely sure I want to do medicine and I believe my CV reflects that very well.

So in your case OP, I understand you completely but if shadowing is your only clinical experience and it was for only about 3 wks, you definitely need to get your hands on to some volunteering at an hospital, hospice or something like that in my opinion. That way you have a more solid resume and you got some clinical volunteering going on while applying.

Hope this helps!

Anyone with an opinion about my case, I'm all ears as well 🙂.

EDIT: sorry I posted this twice, it was my phone. It went crazy lol 😛

 

[littlealex]

1 hr a week for 2 years >>> 10 hours a day for 3 weeks.

 

[bucks2010]

I think you are getting some bad advice in this thread. Your experience sounds like a great one. If the major concern here is that it was only for three weeks, then don't say that on your application! Say you spent 120 hours with a surgeon and did x, y, z. It's your application - paint yourself in the best light possible. For what it's worth, I did far less and got plenty of interviews/acceptances. Keep up the good work.

This isn't possible since you have to list both start/end dates and hrs/wk on the primary app.

Anyways, while there is a "clinical" component to this, I don't think that's what this experience is. Your primary purpose was to shadow. If your shadowing was "10% clinical", would you still list it as a clinical experience? I think that's a bit sketchy. You have a great shadowing experience and can detail what you learned in the description.

Find a longer-term volunteering position somewhere where you can demonstrate commitment by serving for a length of time.

 

[gatorade848]

exam week so didnt have time to respond, now i got craploads of questions i need to address lol.

I didnt have any personal connection of any kind, in fact i just found the list of physicians working at the hospital and emailed everybody from A-C, was gonna go all the way to Z next but the chief of surgery replied and he turned out to be really chill dude. it was luck/chance i got to shadow him. there were several people that were shadowing him due to personal connections but I pretty much just randomly emailed my way in lol.

I thought clinical experience literally means experience in a clinical setting, aka hospital. I did interact with patients even though I was shadowing and I thought that = clinical experience. I know Catalystik is very reputable and knowledgable when it comes to this type of stuff but doesnt LizzyM always say around here "if you can smell patients, it is clinical experience"? and she actually served as adcom or something? Btw this isnt my only EC for application and I am arranging to volunteer at VA for the "clinical" experience.

ok lets just assume what I did is clinical, how come 120 hours over 3 weeks<<<2 hours per week for a year? I dont see how that actually shows less committment... I mean I went the hospital when the surgeon got to work early in the morning, and left late after everyone else. I saw everything from beginning to end, like i said from initial appointment to final rounds, something that seems like would be impossible to do for a person that only stay for 2 hours a week. He/she could be just doing the same thing over and over again without learning much about anything else. I was on a surgeon's schedule from 7-5 with snack bars for lunch for 3 weeks, it just seems to me thats whole lot more dedication and commitment than coming in every friday from 2pm-4pm.

 

[flakpilot]

I understand your point but I think that what everybody else were trying to say is that ok cool you can commit and go that many hours for 3 weeks, you have the initial rush/excitement of forming part of this clinical experience. However, for some people, after 5, 8, 12 months going to the same place, same experience, same environment, etc. it can become a routine/boring and that's when the adcoms see well, even if the person didn't love it..he/she stuck to it. He/she was responsible and continued for whatever amount of time he/she committed to (some hospitals basically require that your work with them for at least six months for example). or they can think/say, well he/she must've clearly committed to that activity, he/she must've learned a lot from it. When you do the thing for 3 weeks however, well yeah he/she committed for 3 weeks and a lot of hours and must've learned a lot but it's viewed differently you know?.

Think about it this way: what would be more impressive?: some people who lasted married, let's say 3 years being together every hour of the day..or some people who lasted married 40, 50 years and weren't able to see each other except at nights or sometimes once a week or once a month? (living in separate countries or something you never know)

This might be a bad explanation or a bad metaphor, but this is how i see it. Anyone else, feel free to jump in 😛

 

[The Coon]

It's clinical. List it on your application and talk about it in your PS. Honestly, shadowing is probably the best thing you can do to get a view of what being a Doctor is really like, seeing that you are with them the entire day and you get 1 on 1 contact.

Anyway, like everyone else has said, you probably still need to do something else clinical that shows some sort of responsibility/position. Everyone else on the interview trail will be talking about the things they did while you will only be able to talk about the things you saw.

 

[LizzyM]

OK, OP, when you complete the application, you should classify this as "other" and not "volunteer, clinical" because, frankly, you didn't really provide a service to others as you'd expect a "volunteer" to do.

AMCAS gives you a space for the start & end dates andand for hours per week you'd say 40. In the description, you might want to go further and specify that it was a 3 week shadowing experience including pre-op clinic, OR and in-patient rounds.

You might want to have some other longer term activity as jumping in and doing something for 3 weeks and making a lifetime decision based on that (and a very expensive decision for most students) might seem like rushing into things.

 

[gatorade848]

since I am applying early this summer is it too late to start on getting more clinical experience? I could send an update letter detailing my new activities and grades but I am not sure if that will arrive on time...

btw I am not basing my decision to become a doctor just on this 3 week experience. I got other stuff lol

 

[apumic]

since I am applying early this summer is it too late to start on getting more clinical experience? I could send an update letter detailing my new activities and grades but I am not sure if that will arrive on time...

btw I am not basing my decision to become a doctor just on this 3 week experience. I got other stuff lol

Well, it's probably best to start now (i.e., there's no time like the present). The reality is that most are going to see right through what you're doing (i.e., you're doing this last minute, which negates any clinical volunteer element and makes it obvious you're not really using this in an exploratory manner) but it certainly can't hurt (anymore than not having done it).

 

[MightyMoose]

since I am applying early this summer is it too late to start on getting more clinical experience? I could send an update letter detailing my new activities and grades but I am not sure if that will arrive on time...

btw I am not basing my decision to become a doctor just on this 3 week experience. I got other stuff lol

It's never too late to start. Just get on the ball and start ASAP since you're applying for this application cycle. You can have about 3-4 more months of volunteering done by the time you submit your application. Just get in there quickly, because most hospitals require a TB test and orientation, which can set you back a few weeks.

 

[gatorade848]

update, I go to vanderbilt and I just met with our pre-med advisor, who used to serve on the admission committee at vandy med school. I asked him about this and he said of course it is clinical experience so there you go. irregardless I am gonna try get some last minute hospital volunteering in, extra EC cant hurt

 

[apumic]

update, I go to vanderbilt and I just met with our pre-med advisor, who used to serve on the admission committee at vandy med school. I asked him about this and he said of course it is clinical experience so there you go. irregardless I am gonna try get some last minute hospital volunteering in, extra EC cant hurt

And the typical "I'll keep asking until I get the answer I want" prevails again, as if multiple current adcoms and medical school faculty were not enough, but an ex-adcom turned pre-med advisor is, of course, right. Just keep in mind, OP, that we know of at least 3 schools to which the answer is quite probably "Nope" (Cat's, LizzyM's, and the school I remain in close contact with for my university's pre-medical program) and only 1 for which it is "probably". I do think getting your add'l hospital volunteering in is a good choice.

 

[gatorade848]

I never said ones opinion is more correct than the other, I never went "I will keep asking until I get the answer I want", I only updated the topic with another reputable source; he may be ex adcom but he is still friends/well connected with all current vandy adcoms.

 

[RookTookIt]

how did you set up such an incredible shadowing opportunity. Connections, or a random email. I am curious.

I am not the OP, but I did have a somewhat similar shadowing experience. I sent out a bunch of random emails/phone calls and one just happened to really work out. It turns out that after my resume and letter had gotten to the desk of a residency director, she did a lot to make sure I got a rewarding experience. I'm sure a ton of residency directors would ignore requests from premeds, but maybe it's worth a shot.

 

[RoboChicken]

I just want to let you know, OP, that I had a similar question before applying (in the WAMC forum). I was also told not to apply this round, and this really disheartened me. Nevertheless, I really felt that I knew that my experiences were worthwhile and that my application as a whole was solid. I already have 3 acceptances, and am waiting on 3 more responses ( some of these are from top 20 schools). My point is that although the people on this forum may truly be trying to help, there is no way they can know your exact situation...or whether it may appeal to other adcomms.

Good luck. 🙂