Non-physician shadowing experience

[Dr Tony T. Chopper]

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DO shadowing aside, I have been really interested in the supplement business and interdisciplinary care between physician to acupuncturist to herbalist. I want to be able to have a working knowledge about what supplements I could recommend to patients if more invasive intervention could be avoided. I have plans on shadowing an acupuncturist and perhaps herbalist but I am not sure if this will help my application in any way. Any thoughts?

 

[Dr Tony T. Chopper]

I would be much more worried that an adcom would view this negatively. Applying to medical school is, in many ways a negative process. That is so many highly qualified apply that adcoms that they need to weed out applicants. Any flag, concern or item that can be construed in a negative fashion may.

I might have miscommunicated a bit when I mentioned non DO shadows. I am speaking as a student who has already had extensive DO shadowing and would like to shadow professionals of other disciplines out of interest.

 

[allantois]

You can shadow whoever you want, but I would be very careful about showing an interest in quack medicine.

 

[BorntobeDO?]

DO shadowing aside, I have been really interested in the supplement business and interdisciplinary care between physician to acupuncturist to herbalist. I want to be able to have a working knowledge about what supplements I could recommend to patients if more invasive intervention could be avoided. I have plans on shadowing an acupuncturist and perhaps herbalist but I am not sure if this will help my application in any way. Any thoughts?

Yeah, no. DO's really don't like being lumped in with alternative medicine. They have been fighting that stigma for 60 years. Thats right up there with writing 'I don't really care about being a DO, I just want to be a doctor' on your secondary. It may be true, but you don't say it cause your app gets thrown out. So yeah you may want to perscribe herbs like a ND, but don't tell the DO schools, they want real physicians not as allantois says 'quacks.'

Side note: On display at NSU they had a book of Quackery from like 1895. The funny thing was the book was serious.

 

[jqueb29]

If I was an adcom, I would look upon an app that mentioned shadowing an acupuncturist or herbalist very very extremely unfavorably.