I'm setting out on a pre-med course and I was wondering how many hours shadowing a physician should a competitive applicant have?
Enough where you can talk about how you have observed a physician's lifestyle and decided you would like to make that your career choice. There is no magic number, 50 hours is a solid number but you could certainly get away with less, and you certainly DON'T need the hundreds of hours that many people report having on these forums.
I had under 50 and did just fine this cycle (so far 8 interviews, 3 acceptances). That being said, one of my interviewers did give me a very hard time about "only" having 40ish, and only having a LOR from one of the three physicians I shadowed. He said I'd need to get another 40 (all documented by letters) to be able to get an acceptance. Result: waitlisted. FWIW.
Sadly it's a true story. Sucks because it was my favorite school (on paper) of the ones I had gotten interview invites into, and has a reputation for being really friendly, low key interviews. I just got a bad draw that day, I guess.
Positive side is that even if I don't get in off the waitlist I have an acceptance at another school I ended up liking just as much after visiting there.