I think shadowing a nurse is useful to know how a hospital runs (because nurses do run the hospital) but it won't show you as much about what a doctor does. I think it could be useful, but I wouldn't recommend that it be your only shadowing experience. Be sure to shadow physicians as well.
Hmm... i was debating on whether or not to post on this threat but I'm hoping my opinion as a RN could be useful to this question.
My background is I'm a charge nurse (nursing supervisor) for a big teaching emergency department.
I do have people come to shadow nurses in my department, mainly from my undergrad. The reason many of them shadow is (as stated above) to get a better understanding of nurse/md roles, relationships, career, and lifestyle. Most have said the shadowing experience is extremely beneficial for many reasons.
The nurse can explain what they do and more importantly what they don't do. In simplelest terms the MD creates the general direction for the plan of care and the nurse guides and executes the plan of care. Shadowing in general, in any big healthcare system can take away a lot of misconceptions. In the ED our nurses function with a high level of autonomy. With the creation of standardized order sets, many nurses can start the plan of care w/o a physician present. We function off of order sets that allow us to administer/titrate drugs, send lab tests, order ekgs by ourselves in order to care for our patients.
Students also like seeing, visualizing a plan of care being executed and being able to see, interpret the patient response. Following a nurse is the best way to do this, since the nurse is the one who does most of the care. For example, if you order a nasogastric tube, you would want to know not only the benefits/risks, but you also would want to be able to tell your patient what they can expect to feel/experience. Ie that it is very uncomfortable, that they might get a bloody nose, that they will gag, that they should beable to speak, that their first instinct is to throw their head back, that drinking water through a straw can help pass the tube down... watching a nurse actually put a tube down is the best way to get an idea of what it is actually like.
We need our physicians and our physicians need us, we have a great working relationship (at least in my ED). The students that shadow us are amazed at how close our relationships are with our docs. Often our students talk to the nurse they are shadowing then can get hooked up with a doc for awhile to talk to them. The nicest thing about shadowing a nurse who works closely with their physician counter-parts (ie ED/ICU) is that the physicians are also assessible so that you can have a very generalized shadowing day, seeing aspects of both careers and also talking to a variety of health care professionals. I think this really can help in determining if a physician career path is the path for you (which is what shadowing is all about). Remember to ask about life style too, your career choice also some what dictates your life style.
Sorry this post is kinda all over the place, i just worked a 12hr shift and my brain is foggy.
