Shadowing and research?

[vanillawafer]

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So I am pretty new to the whole medical field in general. I have been researching a lot about school life in undergrad and Med school and boy is it a plethora of overwhelming information to understand! I can't fathom how you guys do it haha 🙂

Anyways my question currently is what exactly is shadowing and how can I get involved in this? I notice that people include this on medical school applications, and they usually have tons of hours to emphasize their extracurriculars with.

The same also goes for research. How does one know what to research/how to research? As dumb as it sounds, are you finding information about stuff? And for publications... Are you finding cures... Or what?

Thank you guys, this will be one of many questions I pursue. By the way, this mobile app is stellar!!!

 

[superpom_7]

Shadowing is basically when you observe what a physician does. You get to see first hand what it is like being a doctor, what they do, how they interact with patients, and all of that good stuff. You usually can just ask or contact a doctor or your doctor and politely ask if you can shadow them. Research if very broad. I am extremely interested in doing research myself. From what I gathered, you go and contact a professor (please correct me or enlighten me if I am wrong ). In a sense you are gathering information, yes.

 

[jqueb29]

Shadowing is just following a doctor around and observing what all he does, and it is very easy to get involved with. I personally knew 2 of the doctors I shadowed, but I shadowed another doctor in my college town that I had never met before. All I did was look up doctors in town practicing in areas that sounded interesting and cold called them asking if I could shadow.

There are many ways to get involved with research. My college offered Freshman Research as a class, but I didn't get involved in research at all until my last year doing an Honors thesis. I'm sure most other schools have programs similar to those. For freshman research, you would just tell your advisor that you are interested in it. In my situation, I had a professor who was great that I had a class with a few years previously and just contacted her when I was looking into research.

For research, shadowing, and many things in life, you don't need to know anybody or have crazy qualifications. Just cold call if you don't know anybody, the worst they can do is tell you no.

 

[vanillawafer]

Shadowing is basically when you observe what a physician does. You get to see first hand what it is like being a doctor, what they do, how they interact with patients, and all of that good stuff. You usually can just ask or contact a doctor or your doctor and politely ask if you can shadow them. Research if very broad. I am extremely interested in doing research myself. From what I gathered, you go and contact a professor (please correct me or enlighten me if I am wrong ). In a sense you are gathering information, yes.

So basically shadowing a doctor is just observing what they do on their daily lives. You don't have to know much prior to shadowing? Are they going to teach us or require anything of us?

 

[vanillawafer]

Shadowing is just following a doctor around and observing what all he does, and it is very easy to get involved with. I personally knew 2 of the doctors I shadowed, but I shadowed another doctor in my college town that I had never met before. All I did was look up doctors in town practicing in areas that sounded interesting and cold called them asking if I could shadow.

There are many ways to get involved with research. My college offered Freshman Research as a class, but I didn't get involved in research at all until my last year doing an Honors thesis. I'm sure most other schools have programs similar to those. For freshman research, you would just tell your advisor that you are interested in it. In my situation, I had a professor who was great that I had a class with a few years previously and just contacted her when I was looking into research.

For research, shadowing, and many things in life, you don't need to know anybody or have crazy qualifications. Just cold call if you don't know anybody, the worst they can do is tell you no.

Regarding research, what exactly do you research? Something pertaining to that class? I mean to research do we read books and use search engines? Or does it pertain to a particular study, etc? What exactly is researching?

 

[superpom_7]

So basically shadowing a doctor is just observing what they do on their daily lives. You don't have to know much prior to shadowing? Are they going to teach us or require anything of us?

Yes! You really don't have to know anything haha, you are shadowing them to find out things, and answers for your curious mind regarding the job of a physician. You get to see first hand what they do and what it is like. You can ask questions.

 

[vanillawafer]

Yes! You really don't have to know anything haha, you are shadowing them to find out things, and answers for your curious mind regarding the job of a physician. You get to see first hand what they do and what it is like. You can ask questions.

Wow that's great. Asking my personal doctors is a recommendation I would assume. It wouldn't matter what specialty the doctor has right? Because I would want to shadow my dermatologist, that would seem pretty interesting.

 

[superpom_7]

Wow that's great. Asking my personal doctors is a recommendation I would assume. It wouldn't matter what specialty the doctor has right? Because I would want to shadow my dermatologist, that would seem pretty interesting.

Certainly! Most people want to try and shadow the doctor that is of their specialty of interest, but some doctors won't allow it -- so no it really doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt to try and ask. The worst they could say is no. Go for it . I would love to shadow one of my mother's doctors because she has a lot of doctors of different specialties, but they are so busy it would be nearly impossible.

 

[jqueb29]

Regarding research, what exactly do you research? Something pertaining to that class? I mean to research do we read books and use search engines? Or does it pertain to a particular study, etc? What exactly is researching?

You typically study something related to whatever the professor's lab is studying. Pretty much all science professors in college have a very specific topic they study (like twenty times more preposterously specific than I could have ever imagined as a high schooler; the lab I worked in studied one specific part of one specific protein involved in one specific process of one specific bacterium). My work was in microbiology so I can't speak 100% certain for all other fields, but I am 99.99% certain that you would just be doing laboratory work related to the stuff the professor's lab is studying. The professor assigned me a PhD student as a mentor, and he taught me everything I needed to know, whether it be laboratory techniques or passing along scientific papers that helped provide related knowledge. It's a lot like shadowing; you're not expected to come in with any extra knowledge or experience, and they will provide you with what you need to succeed