Shadowing: Cold calling/emailing/faxing?

[member12352225]

Hello everyone,
I'm an undergrad pre-med looking for doctors to shadow, and I'm a little frustrated when I've been looking around and researching the best way to go about this. I feel it would be most effective to politely email physicians stating that I'm an undergrad interested in shadowing, in their specialty, etc. and leaving my phone number and contact info if they are interested in accommodating me within their busy schedule. However, I'm having a lot of trouble finding physician email addresses - I can mainly only find office phone and fax numbers, even after looking on hospital directories and googling the names of many different physicians. Does anyone have advice for locating physician emails?

Also, does anyone have any experience faxing? I'm a little hesitant to cold call, so I was wondering if sending what I would have emailed, but through a fax number to the office (including my phone no. and email address) would be a better idea, or if they would tend to be ignored/thrown out?

Thank you!

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[AspiringERMD]

Ask your parents or grandparents (or yourself) what doctors they see and request that they ask during their next appointment if he/she would be open to a relative of theirs shadowing him/her. Then it doesn't seem so "cold call"-ish. My grandma has seen the same urologist for over 10 years (has a urostomy due to multiple sclerosis, so he has performed major surgery on her and continued with follow/ups), and that's how I got a week of urology shadowing. My uncle's urologist's friend got me an ER shadowing gig. I shadowed my next door neighbor, an ophthalmologist, for a week. My mom is friends with an HIV specialist who let me shadow. I shadowed doctors at the clinic where I work.

Tl; dr: I don't think I ever had one lick of success from cold calls. Try to exploit any connections you can get, even if somewhat distant. In my case, my family knows/has way more doctors than I do.

 

[meander]

Does your undergrad school have an alumni network/database? Try looking for alumni of your school who are doctors now, they may be more amenable to shadowing as you won't be perceived as a total stranger, and they'll most likely have email addresses available in the database.

 

[tynandaly]

Honestly? Cold calling worked out great for me. In most offices the receptionist will answer and say how they don't allow shadowing because of x/y/z, but some of them were more than glad to take down a message for the doctor, who would later email me back. I was able to shadow 3 or 4 doctors this way who were more than happy to have me around. I think once you initially work up the courage to make the first call, and don't worry about rejections, it is probably the simplest and fastest way to set up shadowing.

Of course, you could always use personal experience and ask your PCP or other doctors you had in the past if you can shadow, and that way you have an "in".