shadowing during 1st year?

[padoo]

Hi, I've always wanted to shadow in surgery or ER. Is it true that it's easier to get a doctor to shadow once you get in med school? (it was a bit hard as a premed)

Also, do most people have time to shadow during first year?

thanks! i think that it will be a fun experience and be more motivating in addition to coursework

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[KeyzerSoze]

Hi, I've always wanted to shadow in surgery or ER. Is it true that it's easier to get a doctor to shadow once you get in med school? (it was a bit hard as a premed)

Also, do most people have time to shadow during first year?

thanks! i think that it will be a fun experience and be more motivating in addition to coursework

In my experience, yes and yes.

 

[Jolie South]

Yes to both.

 

[julie29524]

Why shadow when you will spend hours and hours in it when you are a third year? I guess if you enjoy it like a hobby, go ahead and shadow. But if I were you, I would spend my free time during 1st and 2nd yr at the gym or watching a movie to get away from it all, avoid burn out

Also, I don't know how your curriculum works, but you should have some path knowledge before you shadow, because the ER docs do not know what you've learned yet, but if you are wearing a white coat, they might ask you to make a differential or take a guess at something, and you don't want to feel like an idiot because you haven't learned it yet.

Hope this helps.
Burnt-out MS3

Hi, I've always wanted to shadow in surgery or ER. Is it true that it's easier to get a doctor to shadow once you get in med school? (it was a bit hard as a premed)

Also, do most people have time to shadow during first year?

thanks! i think that it will be a fun experience and be more motivating in addition to coursework

 

[Jolie South]

Why shadow when you will spend hours and hours in it when you are a third year? I guess if you enjoy it like a hobby, go ahead and shadow. But if I were you, I would spend my free time during 1st and 2nd yr at the gym or watching a movie to get away from it all, avoid burn out

Also, I don't know how your curriculum works, but you should have some path knowledge before you shadow, because the ER docs do not know what you've learned yet, but if you are wearing a white coat, they might ask you to make a differential or take a guess at something, and you don't want to feel like an idiot because you haven't learned it yet.

Hope this helps.
Burnt-out MS3

I disagree. I think shadowing from time to time is a great way to remember why you're in medical school when you're studying powerpoints constantly. A couple surgery faculty members will even offer to have pre-clinical students shadow and there's no pressure to perform like a clinical student would. My school also has a ER work-study program that lets you get clinical skills and watch what's going on in the shock room when you're not busy with blood draws/IVs.

 

[turkeyjerky]

God, I can't imagine why you would want to watch someone else work. Where's that puking emoticon when you need it....

 

[ztaw15]

A lot of places have you in a clinic environment 1st and 2nd year now too, though very infrequently. We have a "preceptor" as well as other opportunities to do clinical stuff. It is fun, but it also takes up a lot of time. Also you learn a lot, but you spend a god amount of time feeling really dumb because you basically don't know anything useful 1st year.

 

[padoo]

thanks everyone for the input!

i think it might be worth it looking dumb in exchange of the experience, no? i like internal med right now because it's the one that i've shadowed in undergrad. but SURGERY!!! i've never seen that except on Discovery channel lol

post more experience if anyone have anything to share!!

 

[Guile]

Yes, you can shadow in first year, and yes it is easy. If you want to see some surgery, then I would say go for it. You might not scrub if you don't know how yet and don't know sterile technique (it's not intuitive at first) but you can see a lot looking over the anesthesia drapes. I would email some faculty and ask if you could jump in on some of their cases. You might ask a third year or two to see if they can recommend some friendly surgeons though.

 

[Guile]

Also you can probably update your status to "Medical Student." You're kind of a big deal now, you know.

 

[padoo]

Also you can probably update your status to "Medical Student." You're kind of a big deal now, you know.

lol i wish!! but i gotta wait 'til i get my BS next month to be officially a med student

also, what do you say about patient contact?
are you allow to visit patients in the wards as a med student???

 

[Guile]

lol i wish!! but i gotta wait 'til i get my BS next month to be officially a med student

also, what do you say about patient contact?
are you allow to visit patients in the wards as a med student???

"Are you allow to visit patients in the wards as a med student?"

You're either incredibly naïve or trollin' hard.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

"Are you allow to visit patients in the wards as a med student?"

You're either incredibly naïve or trollin' hard.

Or he's asking about patient contact as a pre-clinical medical student.

 

[julie29524]

Ditto. I am actually leaning towards 'naive'.

1st: To the OP, if you do shadow a surgery, please do not mention anything about the Discovery Channel.

2nd: Of course you can go visit the patients, otherwise, what would you be doing? touring the nursing station and visiting the pyxis machines? You crack me up.

"Are you allow to visit patients in the wards as a med student?"

You're either incredibly naïve or trollin' hard.

 

[chief illiniwek]

Why shadow when you will spend hours and hours in it when you are a third year? I guess if you enjoy it like a hobby, go ahead and shadow. But if I were you, I would spend my free time during 1st and 2nd yr at the gym or watching a movie to get away from it all, avoid burn out

I second this.

While it is nice to have something as a reminder of why you spend so much time studying, there are plenty of volunteering opportunities that can give you that.

 

[sunset823]

my school actually had a formal 'shadowing' program in first year, called the Clinical Preceptorship Program, where you were assigned to a local doctor based on your interests. I shadowed in the ICU, and it was an amazing experience. My preceptor was awesome, I got to use a lot of my basic science knowledge (it actually helped me a lot in classes/exams to visualize what I had seen on an ICU patient), and it helped me (sort of) solidify my career plans (I want to do critical care, but there are many paths to get there).

I will also be in a formal anesthesia program this summer where I will get 15% clinical experience in the OR. Since anesthesia is a field we aren't exposed to much in third year, this will be both a great opportunity to hone my interest and potentially get letters later.

in sum, I would say definitely take advantage of being in the wards first year. I came in with not much clinical experience and no transferable skills, and I think I sorta know how this whole doctoring thing works now

 

[padoo]

my school actually had a formal 'shadowing' program in first year, called the Clinical Preceptorship Program, where you were assigned to a local doctor based on your interests. I shadowed in the ICU, and it was an amazing experience. My preceptor was awesome, I got to use a lot of my basic science knowledge (it actually helped me a lot in classes/exams to visualize what I had seen on an ICU patient), and it helped me (sort of) solidify my career plans (I want to do critical care, but there are many paths to get there).

I will also be in a formal anesthesia program this summer where I will get 15% clinical experience in the OR. Since anesthesia is a field we aren't exposed to much in third year, this will be both a great opportunity to hone my interest and potentially get letters later.

in sum, I would say definitely take advantage of being in the wards first year. I came in with not much clinical experience and no transferable skills, and I think I sorta know how this whole doctoring thing works now

that's really cool!! i was also thinking like you, that spending time in the wards could help you relate coursework materials better

by the way to some of the posters, sorry the questions about patient visits seem obvious to you. since it's only the first and not the clinical year, i'm not sure if you would be allowed to visit patients. clinical knowledge-wise, i don't think that an MS1 would be so different from an undergrad, where visiting patients in a big teaching hospital ward would be more problematic. so if they don't let you do that as a first year, it wouldn't be surprising, yeah?

 

[justdoit31]

I would say yes to both- here we can shadow just about anyone by sending an email. With the ER we just show up in scrubs and white coat and can hang out/shadow whenever. I know classmates who spend lots of time shadowing and others who haven't done anything beyond our required 1-2x a month of clinic during 1st year. But those who have shadowed got great experiences- sutured after surgery, caught a baby, etc.

We also run a free clinic each week that students get clinical experiences in- we do the full history/physical present to doctors, fill out nursing order forms, and then learn the labs from the nurses so we can do them on our own. The doctor then looks at labs and what your history was and discusses patient with you then goes in and talks to patient and provides treatment. Overall great experience