Shadowing Before Medical SChool

BU Medical Sciences
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
futuretopdoctor said:
I would like this thread to be exclusively focused on shadowing opportunities.

I would like to get more shadowing opportunities to determine a field of interest for myself when it comes time to apply for residency. For instance, I recently contacted the hospital I volunteered at during my high school years for shadowing opportunities. I have shifts set up this summer now for the Cath lab and Orthopedic Surgery.

I would like to ask the community here for the kinds of specialties to shadow before medical school starts (anaethesia, derm, ortho, cardio, nuero, hem and onc, plastics, urology, etc.). Would it be ideal to get specialties that are tough to rotate in during med school (like plastics, ENT, etc.)? How many days per specialty be a good balance? Also, what would you suggest in terms of doing shadowing at my home medical school (before term starts), vs. shadowing in my local hospital vs. shadowing private practice?

And finally, what kind of questions would be most useful to ask doctors when shadowing to best gain the feel of the specialty?
Click to expand...

This belongs in the pre med forum.

I hate to sound jaded, but shadowing before medical school doesn't mean a whole lot.

You will learn about what each doc will do (more or less) in your preclinical years (what the pathology and treatments are), and that will help with choosing what you want to do based on your strengths or what you dislike.

Most students change their minds a lot even in medical school. Third and fourth years will be most important for you deciding what it is you want to do.

Go ahead and shadow but keep in mind it will likely not be some magical experience that shows you what you will do for the rest of your life, nor will it be all that impressive to ad coms. Just get out there and see a few fields that you think sound interesting... The main goal of shadowing before medical school should be figuring out the question, " do I want to be a PHYSICIAN," not determining that you've decided to go into an internal medicine gastroenterology fellowship because watching a physician look at bowels all day was so amazing.
 
Last edited:
Get around 50 hours of shadowing to know what a doctor does daily. That is all adcoms care about. If you're really interested, go for 100. Otherwise, your hours are better spent doing some community work or getting real patient interaction through becoming a CNA or phlebotomist. You'll have the entirety of medical school to really nail down what it is you want to do. Better to not get ahead of yourself and lose sight of your current end-goal, which is simply getting accepted to an MD or DO program
 
hi thanks for the responses thus far

@pathologyDO. I appreciate your feedback. I was hoping to put in the med forum because people there would be more experienced in terms of useful med experiences for specialties. I think pre-meds would just be uber-competitive and not really have as strong as grasp as med students/residents. Would it be possible for you to put this forum back in the allopathic med forum?

@HCHopeful thanks for your advice thus far. I just want to keep active for the summer.

Anyone else have specific advice on specific specialties?
 
futuretopdoctor said:
Would it be possible for you to put this forum back in the allopathic med forum?
Click to expand...
Lol. You're a premed (as am I, although an accepted one) so we don't discuss things in the med student forum, we discuss them here where we belong.

On another note, shadow as many specialities as you want, but you're going to be highly disappointed if you think it will be life changing. The more competitive specialties I shadowed were almost worse because The doctor didn't have the time to talk me though anything. It was definitely better when there was a resident there, as they had they would talk me through procedures.
The bottom line is you're not going to figure out which specialty you want by shadowing. So rack up some hours and make the med schools happy.
 
You will have more than enough exposure to all the specialties during your M3 year. Any shadowing beforehand will not give you an accurate picture of the specialty and will not truly help you decide. There are still plenty of people in my class who still dont have a great idea of what they want to go into and we are over 75% done with 3rd year...just the nature of the beast.You cant get a great idea of the specialty till you actually have to work its hours and deal with the downside. I know plenty of people who were all about surgery the first two years that switched once they experienced the gen surg lifestyle and were not competitive enough for the surgical sub-specialties.

My advice would be stay away from shadowing the specialties that you mentioned and focus on interacting with patients to know if you really mesh with medicine and enjoy interacting with patients. ER or a PCP is great experience for that type of exposure.
 
futuretopdoctor said:
hi thanks for the responses thus far

@pathologyDO. I appreciate your feedback. I was hoping to put in the med forum because people there would be more experienced in terms of useful med experiences for specialties. I think pre-meds would just be uber-competitive and not really have as strong as grasp as med students/residents. Would it be possible for you to put this forum back in the allopathic med forum?

@HCHopeful thanks for your advice thus far. I just want to keep active for the summer.

Anyone else have specific advice on specific specialties?
Click to expand...

The medical student forums are for topics pertaining to medical students and above. Your topic is beneficial to pre-meds. Plenty of medical students and physicians come to pre-allo, so you will get just as good answers here.
 
I'm not really sure what kind of advice you're looking for?

You should shadow for your own benefit - to get a sense of what the day-to-day practice of medicine is like and to get some exposure to the breadth and depth available in the career. To that end, I think shadowing multiple specialties is a good idea. Admissions committees aren't going to care that you shadowed at an ENT vs. plastic surgery vs. peds practice. That's not the point. What they will care about, though, is that when you say, "I want to be a physician" you have some experience that can reasonably support that claim. That kind of experience doesn't have to come from shadowing, but it often does.

In terms of the practice environment, again, check out a variety of opportunities - for you. Practicing in an academic center vs. a private community hospital vs. an out-patient practice can be very different. You may not get the best understanding of what medicine can offer if you limit yourself to only one practice environment.

At the end of the day, whether you shadow or not isn't going to get you an acceptance to medical school. Nor is the specialty you're exposed to or the practice environment going to matter. More than anything, shadowing (and any other clinical experience) should be done for yourself to evaluate whether you actually want to embark on the long and expensive path to become a physician.
 
futuretopdoctor said:
@NickNaylor. Thanks for your response. I have already been accepted to medical school. I am pursuing shadowing to get a feel of specialties and practice environments.

What I meant to ask was, from experienced med students/residents, what kind of environments would be conducive to more learning opportunities for a matriculating med student? For instance, I was just worried if I started shadowing in the field of interest at the med school before term begins I could leave an impression (whether positive or negative) that would impact LORs and my residency application.

Additionally, as I am still young and not had extreme exposure to all fields of medicine, I was seeking advice from people for fields to try before med school to get a balanced picture of medicine. For instance, I think both cardiology and ortho are interesting, but very different in application. Hence, I wanted to gain an understanding of fields of medicine that might be difficult for me to get exposure to, so when I make a decision to specialize, I will be making it thoroughly and responsibly.
Click to expand...

Ah, well in that case I would do absolutely zero shadowing and enjoy the remaining months until you start medical school. You will have plenty of opportunities to shadow once you matriculate. You will gain plenty of clinical experience during the clerkship year. If you're interested in an "off the beaten path" specialty - e.g., allergy, PM&R, the surgical subspecialties, etc. - then shadowing might be useful to see if those fields are things you'd be interested in pursuing, but even then that can wait until medical school. Enjoy the time you have now. There will be plenty of time for shadowing later.
 
Keep in mind, too, that many med schools have clubs focused on specific specialties and these clubs make opportunities for shadowing or other interactions with specialties that help students make decisions regarding residency.
 
Last edited:
In addition to the solid advice in the 2 posts above this you can always shadow between M1 and M2 after you have a better idea of what you want to do (your school should have some career exploration stuff for you 1st year)
 
joker2400 said:
In addition to the solid advice in the 2 posts above this you can always shadow between M1 and M2 after you have a better idea of what you want to do (your school should have some career exploration stuff for you 1st year)
Click to expand...

In addition to the fact that shadowing during these times would likely be MUCH easier than trying to set up a shadowing gig now. In my experience, it was much easier to get involved with shadowing once you've actually started medical school. Being a part of a larger medical institution contributes to that.
 
Shadowing at your future medical school won't move the needle much. As a premed you'll have zero skills/knowledge base with which to impress your attendings. While many people are understanding of your level of training, first impressions matter. I would shadow with local (non-academic) physicians.

In general, enjoy your summer. If you have spare time and are dead set on shadowing, I'd try to get exposure to more obscure fields (e.g. PM&R) that aren't a part of a traditional curriculum. Exposure to these fields in medical school will be limited, and you may not have the time to shadow several different fields once you've matriculated (aside from the M1/M2 summer).

The downside, of course, is that with zero background in pathophysiology, it'll be hard for you to interpret your experiences. I shadowed with my field as a premed and thought it was absurdly dull; it wasn't until I was re-exposed to it in medical school that I gained an appreciation for the field. By all means go for it if you want, but keep in mind you simply won't get the same benefits a med student would.
 
I would like to seek advice from med students/residents/attendings regarding how much time (i.e. hours and days) I should seek to be in specialty to get a decent view of the field, the hospital, the cases, and patient care.
 
Last edited:
futuretopdoctor said:
For instance, I think general surgery is a wider field than say neurology. Hence, should I request more time in general surgery than neurology?
Click to expand...

I would say the opposite actually. Not that either one is a limited field, but you see a lot of the same operations over and over in general surgery. If you're at a large academic center you'll probably be able to see some interesting cases regardless of what field you shadow. If you're at a community hospital, you'll likely be seeing more bread and butter stuff.
 
Sorry for jumping on this thread, but I don't need to make a thread for it. What do you suggest we do if we're interested in a field like PM&R?
 
futuretopdoctor said:
@NickNaylor. Thanks for your response. I have already been accepted to medical school. I am pursuing shadowing to get a feel of specialties and practice environments.

What I meant to ask was, from experienced med students/residents, what kind of environments would be conducive to more learning opportunities for a matriculating med student? For instance, I was just worried if I started shadowing in the field of interest at the med school before term begins I could leave an impression (whether positive or negative) that would impact LORs and my residency application.

Additionally, as I am still young and not had extreme exposure to all fields of medicine, I was seeking advice from people for fields to try before med school to get a balanced picture of medicine. For instance, I think both cardiology and ortho are interesting, but very different in application. Hence, I wanted to gain an understanding of fields of medicine that might be difficult for me to get exposure to, so when I make a decision to specialize, I will be making it thoroughly and responsibly.
Click to expand...

I would shadow a bartender the summer before medical school. You only liver once.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
Bankruptcy before medical school
Replies
8
Views
2K
Stuaccount
S
A
Shadowing?
Replies
5
Views
664
Goro
Goro
unumsolum
Continuity with shadowing
Replies
6
Views
491
candbgirl
C
G
Medical School Application Updates?
Replies
6
Views
1K
golfduck23
G
J
Choose your medical school
Replies
1
Views
1K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top