Physician Shadowing

[blazinfury]

How important is this in terms of admissions? I am having trouble finding a physician to shadow. Any advice on how I may be able to find one? Any input is welcome. Thanks.

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[seraph524]

Shadowing is not particularly important for admissions, let alone MD/PhD admissions. Clinical volunteering is sufficient.

Shadowing is hard to get because of HIPAA rules, and those that are able to shadow do it in the clinics of their family doctors.

 

[RasslinGod]

ima bit confused on what clinical experience is. Is that patient interaction? Is that hands-on work like drawing blood?

 

[ohhowiwish]

Its volunteer/work in a clinical setting. Patient interaction more than suffices- you just need to have experience in the clinical environment so you know what type of environment/atmosphere you're getting yourself into.

 

[RasslinGod]

thanks for the info!!

im wondering, woudl medical schools expect you to see what a doctor does, like surgery or treating a patient? I know it might be against the law. But couldnt the admissions committe ask: how do you know you want to be a doctor if you haven't done any hands on work like drawing blood or if you havent seen directly what a doctor does?

If i was jsut basing my answers off patient interaction, i don't think i could answwer it.

 

[ohhowiwish]

this question is probably better asked in the pre-allo form based on all the follow-up questions asked since its becoming more of a purely pre-med thing rather than a physician-scientist application thing IMO.

there are plenty of ways to answer the question "why the doctor profession" than saying you saw actual blood or scrubbed in and wanted more. its more of an individual question- why are you even considering this field to begin with? you don't need to actually see a surgery procedure inside the actual operation room to answer that. nobody is expected to have drawn blood and not everyone who applies to medical school, let alone physician scientist applicants, have drawn blood (i would guess that those who have done it are in the minority).

 

[Mazelia]

this question is probably better asked in the pre-allo form based on all the follow-up questions asked since its becoming more of a purely pre-med thing rather than a physician-scientist application thing IMO.

Here's a link to a recent pre-allo thread about shadowing; I didn't read all of it but it looked like a reasonably helpful "intro to shadowing" thread.

Also, to bring it back to the MD/PhD realm of discussion, I made a particular effort to locate physicians and researchers at my school or at a nearby hospital with "MD, PhD" after their names. I did not shadow one, but did have sit-down chats with two physician scientists-- one who did primarily bench research and teaching and another who split his time between research and clinical duties. Both were helpful and enlightening, and I was able to set up appointments with them via email after finding their names on the institution's website. If you are considering going the MD/PhD route, I highly recommend cold-calling/cold-emailing some locale mudphuds who can take a few minutes (probably out of their research time) to talk about what they do.

 

[QofQuimica]

How important is this in terms of admissions? I am having trouble finding a physician to shadow. Any advice on how I may be able to find one? Any input is welcome. Thanks.

Are you applying MD/PhD or MD-only? If it's the former, I'll defer to all the MD/PhD application experts we have here. If it's the latter, getting some kind of clinical experience is very important. A lot of students get shadowing opportunities through their school (ex. premed clubs) or by asking doctors they know. You can also try volunteering in an ER, clinic, or other hospital setting. to you.

 

[taXi]

Any advice on how I may be able to find one?

Where in NY are you located? If you are anywhere near Valley Stream or can be over the summer I suggest the pre-med internship at Franklin Hospital. I found it to be a very worthwhile experience whether or not it made a big difference in my applications.

http://www.northshorelij.com/body.cfm?ID=1808

 

[Neuronix]

I had this problem as well. Many hospitals have volunteering opportunities. I volunteered in the ER at the nearby hospital for a couple hundred hours over a couple years. If you can actually find a MD/PhD who does clinical and research that might even be ideal but good luck with that. I don't think there was one of those in the entire state where I went to undergrad...

 

[sweetlife]

So I had a question along the the same lines:
I am applying MD/PhD this coming cycle and have about 100+ hours volunteering in a pretty intensive (read: lots of patient contact) ER program. I've done it over a couple of years. I have a dr. that keeps asking me to shadow her. Do you think I should? I mean I know it can't hurt but its only going to be for about 10-15 hours, so can it really help? Do you think my ER volunteering is enough?

 

[ohhowiwish]

So I had a question along the the same lines:
I am applying MD/PhD this coming cycle and have about 100+ hours volunteering in a pretty intensive (read: lots of patient contact) ER program. I've done it over a couple of years. I have a dr. that keeps asking me to shadow her. Do you think I should? I mean I know it can't hurt but its only going to be for about 10-15 hours, so can it really help? Do you think my ER volunteering is enough?

i think youre looking at it in completely the wrong way by trying to quantify the event and asking if something is "enough" based on time spent

if she keeps insisting, why not? it certainly doesn't hurt and you may gain something from it, even if its only going to be for 10-15 hrs

 

[delirium81]

In terms of how important clinical volunteer work is, I think the general concensus is that it's far less important for MD/PhD programs than for MD programs. I'm not sure if this holds true for schools whose MD/PhD admissions process first requires approval of applicants by the MD program. Perhaps someone who goes to one of those schools could speak to that? I think most MD/PhD programs just want to make sure that you know what working in a clinical setting entails and that you're comfortable with it. I only had 60 hours of hospital volunteering and it didn't hold me back at all in terms of MD/PhD apps, but I suspect it might have been too little if I had applied MD-only.