Little Shadowing

[evansh]

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How bad is only having around 10-15 hours of shadowing if I have a good amount (4-5k) hours of combined paid clinical work and clinical volunteering?

 

[heebeejeebies]

I'm in the same boat, lots of in hospital clinical work, little shadowing (it's effectively unlawful in hospitals in my province), hopefully it won't hurt us too much.

 

[evansh]

I'm in the same boat, lots of in hospital clinical work, little shadowing (it's effectively unlawful in hospitals in my province), hopefully it won't hurt us too much.

Yup. I wish I found SDN sometime before submitting AMCAS. I had always been told at my school that only clinical exposure as a whole was important, and that the breakdown of shadowing, volunteer, and paid was unimportant.

 

[utmn]

I have the same. I think it's okay- they tell you that shadowing is to see what the day to day life of a physician is. As long as you've covered that with multiple specialties you should be fine.

 

[ndafife]

N=1, but last year I applied with 30 hours of shadowing and no other clinical experiences and finished with 3 acceptances. Quantity =/= quality, and it really is how you sell that experience

 

[evansh]

N=1, but last year I applied with 30 hours of shadowing and no other clinical experiences and finished with 3 acceptances. Quantity =/= quality, and it really is how you sell that experience

That's good to hear actually. Congrats to you! I'm curious what the SDN adcoms think about this.

 

[futuremdforme]

I'm a nontrad, but I had so little shadowing that I didn't make it its own section. I just referenced it in my PS and secondaries. I got 4 acceptances (out of 11 schools that I applied to.) If you want to make it a section, you can continue to do shadowing throughout 2015 and mention this in secondaries and interviews.

 

[heebeejeebies]

That's good to hear actually. Congrats to you! I'm curious what the SDN adcoms think about this.

I think the type of shadowing is important too, most of mine was in direct medical evaluations on clinic floors, so patient histories, standardized interview stuff, examinations etc.

I got to see the "one on one" dynamic.

Whereas a lot of my friends observed surgeries, so they have 30+ more hours than me, but it was mostly looking at a laparoscopic procedure on a screen with some surgeon commentary on the side.

 

[ac62994]

What do you do in your clinical work?

 

[evansh]

What do you do in your clinical work?

Advanced EMT