Shadowing hours.. Please help

Started by Bricktop
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
B

Bricktop

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Hello everyone, how does one going about obtaining their shadowing/volunteer hours? Have any of you guys personally visited a particular facility and ask to volunteer or searched online? I'm in the process of getting my hours done this semester and hope to shadow in various settings, however just confused on how to approach it. Thanks alot everyone.
 
just call any nearby clinics by you and ask around. as for inpatient hospital hours call their volunteer departments, might take awhile to clear you to volunteer though.
 
I usually would just call the setting I was looking for and give them a little spiel:

"My name is X, i am a pre-physical therapy student from X university looking to obtain observation hours. I was wondering if it would be possible to do X hours at your site?"


That's how I got my observation hours in. At the hospital, they said yes but then referred me to the hospitals volunteer department. I had to become a certified hospital volunteer (complete with immunizations and training) before I could even shadow. It was a lot of work, but I was able to get a lot of hours in and had a wonderful experience.

At my school, they said to be sure to use the term observation. Saying volunteer may make the therapists feel as if they have to have some type of job for you to be doing when you are there and they may not want to provide that. Always say observation or shadow 🙂

--Another key: be persistent. You may call a place and get a voicemail box. Leave one. Then follow up if you don't hear back in a few days. You may feel you are annoying but I've had a therapist tell me specifically it was my persistence that made them interested in having me around--they could tell I was serious and interested in the profession!

Hope that helps and good luck. Remember, the PTs were students once too. They understand we need to have experience in the field and most of them are more than happy to help a student out.
 
Thanks Everyone! I appreciate the help, and PTStudent11 I will def. use your advice and I appreciate the thorough response, and yea I feel the same way, persistence is the key.​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.