possibly stupid shadowing question

[firecracked]

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I'm working with the pre-dental society at my university to set up a shadowing program. It's not really a program - more like a list of dentists who would be willing to have students shadow them. Anyways, I figured the easiest way to find dentists in a short amount of time (we start school in a couple weeks) would be to mass email a bunch of dental offices and hope that at least a few will respond and want to help.

I'm just not sure about how formal or informal this email should be. Thusfar, it's pretty formal and concise - I figure they won't have a lot of time to read paragraph after paragraph. But since I'm sending the same email of a bunch of offices (BCC, obviously), I'm not referencing the dentist(s) by name - I just say something along the lines of "if a dentist at your office would be willing to help...." instead of "if Dr. Smith would be willing to help..." But does that sound bad? I don't want them to get the impression that I didn't take the time to even learn the name of the dentist(s) at their office. Should I take to the time to personalize an email to each office? (I've got about 50 offices on my list, and some of them have multiple locations with multiple dentists.) Or would they not really care since it's just one email in the midst of all the things they do on a daily basis to run their practice?

Thanks for any help.

 

[smile101]

If this is for a pre-dental community, then you can share 50 offices among 5 of you and have 10 offices each to call and email (just to get quicker responses). Some offices are too busy to even pay any attention to such emails. Also, a wise idea would be to contact the alumns of your school that are dentists in the area, they most likely would'nt say no.
As far as writing the email is concerned, if you share the work then personalizing wouldn't be too time consuming. If you are the only one doing it, then I guess you'll have to generalize it. I peronally like to address the dentist. Good luck!

 

[GoBlueJays]

I recommend contacting the state dental association. I contacted Maryland State Dental Association and had a dentist to shadow in short order. I just presented my situation and they were quite receptive.

Prior calling the MSDA, I called an orthodontist's office that is near my apartment to see if they would be able to take me on as a shadow.

ME: Hi, I am a graduate student looking to shadow a dentist to gain exposure to the field prior to applying. Would you be willing......

RECEPTIONIST: Dr. XXXX is an orthodontist, not a dentist.

True story.


Regards,
Daniel Day Lewis aka GoBlueJays

 

[americanpierg]

I called about 150 different dentists within my area. I received 4 opportunities. The only problem is that many will tell you they will get back to you, but never do. You can call back to get a follow up, but you will get the same "the Dr. will get back to you" response from the receptionist. This becomes a problem once you get multiple responses back, and you have to call back to cancel some. Embarassing I guess.

 

[firecracked]

Well, thanks for the responses. I emailed my state's dental society, and they're going to ask around for me and see if anyone is willing to help us out.