Lacking Doctor Shadowing?

[BobbyJoe]

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[samac]

I just had about 40 hours of shadowing on my application. But I had a 40 hour per week 6 week health internship.

I think your interpreting is a huge plus because you're in a medical setting, as long as you have a decent amount of hours in a medical setting you'll be fine.

 

[spicysoup55]

I believe your interpreting experience counts as "shadowing" because you are observing the physician in the process.

In fact, I would argue that your interpreting experience is better than the typical shadowing experience because you're playing an active role in patient care. Adcoms will like that.

 

[Catalystik]

I believe your interpreting experience counts as "shadowing" because you are observing the physician in the process.

I think it should count as well. But I'd take care to use the word Shadowing in both the title and activity description, because if it's missed during a quick overview, some schools will think you haven't met their expectation for this activity (and I've seen this happen).

A strategy to consider might be to create an entry under the Shadowing tag, enter 1 hour (since you don't want to double-count the hours already claimed elsewhere), give an explanation and perhaps estimate the total hours of physician-only shadowing, then use the space to discuss insights/impact/ and maybe a few special experiences for that time.

Or, in the remaining weeks before submission time, you could accumulate some extra, dedicated physician shadowing time.

 

[LizzyM]

The one issue I have with counting interpreting as "shadowing" is that you see only the time that physicians are with patients. Some physicians spend a sizable amount of time documenting for the medical record, fighting with third party payers, supervising staff, attending team meetings, doing continuing education activities such as attending lectures or presentations, reviewing records and test results, etc, etc. You really should have an idea of what a typical day/week is like and what proportion of that day is actually spent with patients. You may be seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Goro]

Can you really say that you know what a doctor's day is like from doing this????

Application season is upon us, and I've realized I don't really have any significant doctor shadowing to put on my application. I have, however, been volunteering for a few months as an English-Spanish interpreter for physicians and nurses at a community health clinic. Does this count as "doctor shadowing," even though I'm interpreting and not specifically "shadowing" the doctors?

 

[shtumpa]

The consensus from the adcoms seems to be that, very soon, you will need to already have an MD to prove that you actually are prepared to attend medical school.

following around a doctor for a few days lets you eventually see things when the "hair is down," definitely I think it is valuable and gives you something to think about.

 

[LizzyM]

following around a doctor for a few days lets you eventually see things when the "hair is down," definitely I think it is valuable and gives you something to think about.

I agree. I always roll my eyes when I see someone who seems to think they know what a doctor does based on what they saw when they took their grandma to the doctor and visited her in the hospital or when they were the patient. That's like saying you know what it is to be an actor because you've seen a play.

 

[LizzyM]

Personally I think it's a complete waste of time, but that's probably why I'll never sit on an admissions committee.

EDIT: And to be clear, my opinion is based on two ideas:

(1) You can know the fun/meaningful parts of a profession and be attracted to it, without miring yourself in all the un-fun parts. Having a goal is fine, and should qualify as appropriate interest. No one asks applicants to shadow medical students and residents, even though their experience is fundamentally more meaningful to the next 10 years of an applicant's life than following an attending.

(2) The idea that following one guy (usually in a clinic) is reflective of the experience of most other doctors is specious. Different practice settings and specialties have wildly different day-to-day activities, and following one gives you minimal insight into all the other possibilities.

But again, this is just a personal opinion.

Which is why it is always better to shadow several docs in different settings or one doc for an entire week. I saw an applicant once who had been set up through is school with an alumnus who practiced primary care in a rural area and the applicant went out and lived with the doc for a week in the boondocks during winter break. This was some sort of official program that the school offered so that students could get shadowing experience. I thought it was pretty neat.

 

[LizzyM]

Certainly I don't begrudge anyone who does it out of interest or desire to broaden their horizons. What I object to is the "requirement." I don't know if this is an SDN myth, or if you guys really do sit around the table and mentally downgrade applicants who lack a shadowing experience. But if it's the latter, I think it's kind of ridiculous.

Much of the application process is a dance, and I get that, I did it too. I just think it's crazy and breeds insincerity. You should have volunteer hours to prove that you are altruistic or community-minded or whatever. So everyone runs out and volunteers. You need to prove that you understand what goes on in clinical settings. So everyone runs out to be a scribe or EMT or whatever. You need to prove you want to be a physician. So everyone runs out and tries to find a physician to shadow. None of this actually comments on character or suitability for the profession; all it does is demonstrate that an applicant can balance multiple responsibilities at once and is willing to do what they're told to do.

My personal belief is that all these things have become "mandatory" because you guys have no real way to pare down your applicant pool anymore. MCAT scores are so good, GPAs are so high, letters are so overwhelmingly positive, that you have no way to separate people into reasonably-sized piles anymore. So you come up with additional hoops, not because they're actually relevant, but just so that you have a justification to take an outstanding applicant and put them in the "reject" pile. Even the DO schools seem like they're going this way, based on the threads over there. I mentioned it in a different thread, but when I first joined SDN, there was a lot of talk on the Osteo boards about life experiences and being a well-rounded person. That has largely disappeared, and now every WAMC thread in pre-osteo is the same: MCAT, GPA, ECs, shadowing, clinical experience... barf.

I just don't see the relevance of shadowing in terms of... well, really in terms of anything. Follow around a doctor. Check. Observe what they do. Check. Listen to them complain about all the things they do that they don't want to do. Check. It's artificial. And maybe it gives people more insight into the profession, but maybe just as often it gives a false perception.

When I was a kid I wanted to learn how to ride a bike. My parents didn't make me do 40hrs on a tandem bike before they'd teach me, just to make "extra sure" that I really wanted to learn to ride on my own. People wanna be doctors for a lot of different reasons. If they got the chops, let them be doctors without the nonsense.

Yes, we do have to cut about 85% of the people who apply because there aren't enough hours in the day to interview everyone. And while shadowing was never high on my list, some adcom members do put a high priority on it because they've seen the people who are disillusioned after finding out that medicine is not all rainbows and lollipops. Panda Bear was a case in point: Marine and civil engineer who went into medicine as a second career who became increasingly disillusioned as he got to know the working conditions and patient population he would be working with for the remainder of his career.
Interestingly, the group we've found most need of pre-med clinical experience are the MD/PhD applicants who just might discover that they aren't all that interested in research compared with the joy of clinical care.

 

[BobbyJoe]

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