Question about shadowing

You won't be able to just show up and shadow at the hospital due to HIPPA policies that hospitals strictly enforce. You will probably have to go through volunteer training first, even if the physician does give you permission to shadow him.

 

I called my local MD school and they put me in touch with some docs.

Give something like that a try.

 

What do you do if you're no where near a medical school? (the closest one to me is 2-3 hours away)

 

I say you're exactly right with the idea of just calling the front desk and asking to shadow. I have doing this lately and almost every doc I've talked to is willing to do it. BUT...the most important thing is to find someone halfway nice. Its good if you can talk to somebody you know- maybe a nurse, secretary, tech...anyone who can say "oh you have to shadow him/her!" These have been my best experiences. I was like you though and didn't have a lot of experience, but I just realized you have to start making calls and doing it and it starts to fall into place.

And I got waitlisted for not having enough shadow experience, so its a good thing to do!

 

or like you said, showing up in your case may work better... I usually have to call 4-5 times to set it all up, but it will work out

 

I found this site a while ago that helps pre-meds find doctors to shadow.
http://mdshadow.ning.com/

 

You can always try this AOA mentor program. Just saerch by city and state (leave all other categories blank) and all of the doctors available will pop up. From there you can pick which specialty you wanna shadow. Good luck!

 

I'd start with volunteering in the hospital first, then ask for a shadow. Reason is three fold.

One, you get close to the doctors while you are volunteering besides them. This will make it much easier for them to let you shadow them. Afterall, very few doctors (or people in general) like the idea of having some stranger follow them all day long looking over their shoulder. Build the relationship first, it will make getting that spot much easier.

Two, you will have a better idea of which doctor you want to shadow. Not all doctors are great to shadow. Some doctors might be a completely waste of your time and won't show you much at all. Volunteering first allow you to observe the doctors in their native environment before deciding which doctor inspires you to shadow.

Three, you won't look look so clueless when you shadow. You would already have a good working knowledge of how the doctor kind of works in that hospital. Thus, when you observe him more closely in shadowing, you will pick up on more important and valuable information instead of standing there wondering logistical questions (though they may be good things to observe at times too I suppose)

 

Hmmm...you make some very good points. I have shadowed doctors before and many times was disappointed. However, did you still volunteer (because you did get signed in as a volunteer) ? In the hospitals near me, the volunteer department doesn't allow shadowing. My friend told me about one that is near her that allowed it. That's how I was able to shadow. The site that I mentioned above, I found later on.

 

So in my hospital, there was a special shadowing program for volunteers if we wanted. But what I learned is that if a doctor says yes, ain't no one going to say no to him. When I volunteered on the OR recovery room I used to get pulled into surgeries at the end of the night essentially because the nurses and doctors liked me and wanted me to see some pretty cool stuff. (With the patient consent of course)

but yeah that's a good point, prolly should ask if the hospital has some shadowing program first to increases your chances. And even if it doesn't work out, you got hospital volunteering experience on your application now. It's a win win!