Pre-med school observation

[docman85]

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So I will be starting at a DO school this fall but I am currently working as an EMT in an ER at Vanderbilt. I have recently talked with some people and arranged the opportunity to sit in on as many ortho cases as possible before I start school in Aug. (b/c I am becoming more and more interested in it)

I was curious as to if this observation time will have any affect on my app to residencies 4 years down the line in the event I chose to go into ortho!?!? (I know this is a long time away... I am going to observe whether it does or not...)

The other thing is I am not doing this for any recognition b/c i am already accepted paid money the whole 9 yards, but if there is a benefit to this also that would not be bad either...

 

[asmallchild]

I doubt it will help or hurt your future chances. This is assuming you don't openly antagonize anyone in the OR of course

 

[DHT]

I don't think it will help at all. No one will care if you sat in and watched surgeries or showed an early interest before med school. If the shadowing were at the university you plan on attending, being a familiar face will help the faculty remember you and write a better letter of recommendation when the time comes - but it doesn't sound like this is the case for you (I could have misread your post though).

As asmallchild said, if you are annoying it could even hurt you. So as long as you are modest, do what you're told, and don't do what you're not told, you'll be fine.

All this being said, I definitely think you should do it. You'll find that you are very rushed in picking your specialty with very limited exposure (especially if you want to do something competitive). Getting as much exposure as you can early on will be very valuable to you come third year when you need to decide the rest of your life based on a VERY limited exposure to the fields. For example, at my school we have 4 weeks for elective surgery. This means you have 4 weeks to see all the surgical fields other than General and Vascular (which make up the other 4 weeks). So for me, I did 1 week Neuro, 1 week Plastics, and 2 weeks ortho (I doubled up because of the 3 I liked ortho the best). Coming in knowing what you like and don't like could make it much easier in planning your schedule and alleviate much of your stress. I never got to see ENT, Urology, Cardiothoracic, or Peds. See as much as you can before you are swamped in med school, you'll be happy you did (but I don't think it will help your application).

 

[docman85]

Yea I kinda figured it would not help my app., like I said I am mainly doing this to see further if ortho is def. something I want to do like you said to help with my decision come 3rd year. Thanks guys for your response...