shadowing laws

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So heres the deal, as I was signing up to volunteer at a hospital the lady in charge told me that volunteers couldnt really be around patients because of laws and malpractice problems. That didnt really sound right to me, but I thought to myself, "surely I will get some interaction with patients". First day I'm there they put me behind an information desk for a couple of hours, heaven be praised there was a newspaper there cuz all I got to do was direct someone to radiology. So I really want to go and talk to the volunteer lady and ask her who I need to talk to in order to be able to maybe shadow a doctor or something, anything with patient contact!! But before I do so I figured I'd ask the SDN public if they know anything about such "laws" preventing volunteers from any patient contact in a hospital. Can hospitals make their own rules? I'm not looking to get in their and start treating patients:laugh: I just wanna get in there and see the doctors at work
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cuadrado said:
So heres the deal, as I was signing up to volunteer at a hospital the lady in charge told me that volunteers couldnt really be around patients because of laws and malpractice problems. That didnt really sound right to me, but I thought to myself, "surely I will get some interaction with patients". First day I'm there they put me behind an information desk for a couple of hours, heaven be praised there was a newspaper there cuz all I got to do was direct someone to radiology. So I really want to go and talk to the volunteer lady and ask her who I need to talk to in order to be able to maybe shadow a doctor or something, anything with patient contact!! But before I do so I figured I'd ask the SDN public if they know anything about such "laws" preventing volunteers from any patient contact in a hospital. Can hospitals make their own rules? I'm not looking to get in their and start treating patients:laugh: I just wanna get in their and see the doctors at work
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The hospital I volunteered at required a back ground check and ~1 hour of HIPAA training then set me loose on the ER. I could see the patients and watch procedures/interviews quietly in the corner, but I couldn't speak to the patients unless they spoke to me first. I guess it depends on the hospital's track record with volunteers and how big it is (my hospital was a smaller rural place).
 
cuadrado said:
So heres the deal, as I was signing up to volunteer at a hospital the lady in charge told me that volunteers couldnt really be around patients because of laws and malpractice problems. That didnt really sound right to me, but I thought to myself, "surely I will get some interaction with patients". First day I'm there they put me behind an information desk for a couple of hours, heaven be praised there was a newspaper there cuz all I got to do was direct someone to radiology. So I really want to go and talk to the volunteer lady and ask her who I need to talk to in order to be able to maybe shadow a doctor or something, anything with patient contact!! But before I do so I figured I'd ask the SDN public if they know anything about such "laws" preventing volunteers from any patient contact in a hospital. Can hospitals make their own rules? I'm not looking to get in their and start treating patients:laugh: I just wanna get in their and see the doctors at work
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That is the case at a lot of hospitals nowadays. Unless you get lucky, you're probably going to be stuck behind a desk as a volunteer.

Volunteering looks good as community service, patient contact looks good as medical experience. You can volunteer and also shadow a doctor and get both, you can try to find a doctor that's a friend or family and let you work with them and kill two birds with one stone, you can keep looking for a more interesting opportunity, or you can suck it up and do both.

Those, sadly, are my only ideas.
 
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Yea...I tried to shadow through my PI, who is an MD/PhD. But no dice...HIPAA laws blocked me.

But it was never an issue during interviews. When asked why I didn't have shadowing experience, by mentioning HIPAA laws, they seemed to be content.
 
Instead of volunteering in a hospital, you might want to try out a clinic. This is what I did, and I got a ton of exposure to patients/patient contact, got to help the nurses with patient intake and taking vital signs, and I didn't have to sit behind a desk. (Clinics are usually understaffed, so finding one that needs free help isn't too difficult). I also shadowed a surgeon over the summer which was really great. I would recommend either doing the clinic thing or the shadowing thing instead of the sit-behind-a-desk-so-I-can-write-it-on-my-AMCAS thing.
 
I volunteered at Penn in Philly and at Jefferson and got a ton of patient contact. In both cases, I had to go through some online HIPAA training, but I was able to interact with the patients freely. What I mean is, I could talk to them, but not move them (no physical contact allowed). These were large, urban hospitals btw.
 
In hospitals, I believe you will not be allowed in pts rooms with the doctor (even in the ER) unless the patient consents because of HIPPA laws.

However, if you get to know a doctor well/shadow a doctor, you can have the doctor can ask the pts if it is alright for you to watch before they take hx...
 
Yeah, it's going to vary widely depending on the "atmosphere" of the hospital/clinic and who are you shadowing. Luckily whenever I've spent times with docs in the ER it's never been an issue. One place was a fairly large teaching hospital so everyone was already used to having students and residents running around so I would usually just stick with a resident and they would just tell the patient they had a student with them that day. Another place I was with the attending and he just introduced me to the patient as a student and no one had a problem with it.
 
Hospitals use volunteers to provide services to patients and their families. The volunteer office doesn't exist so that you can get shadowing experiences. If you want to shadow the volunteer office is the wrong place to start. You need to contact doctors and see if they're willling. Maybe your volunteering job can help you develop relationships with physicians so that they're willing to let you shadow.

My hospital volunteering time was 100% patient contact but it was not clinical: reading, playing games to help them pass the time, fetching things, etc.

My shadowing experiences were arranged directly with the physician. They pointed me to the office to get my HIPAA paperwork in order and then I was free to follow them around. I shadowed in clinics and on the wards. In one clinic I even was allowed to take the history (alone in the exam room with the Pt), present my findings, and flesh out the plan.
 
Heres one approach:

Find a state or federally funded/regulated clinic and i'm sure you'll get plenty of volunteer patient contact.
 
Captain Fantastic said:
My hospital volunteering time was 100% patient contact but it was not clinical: reading, playing games to help them pass the time, fetching things, etc.
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I thought the rule of thumb was that patient contact = clinical experience?

I feel like I really have it easy compared to you guys. I volunteer in the dialysis center here. Once a week for three hours I get to talk with the patients. It's helpful for the nurses, the patients, and most of all, I love it.

When I want to shadow, I just email doctors who have interesting looking work. I've never had to sign a HIPAA waiver or do anything other than show up.
 
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I graduated from college last may, and I am set to go to med school (got my acceptance in november) in august. In the interim, I have been working with an orthopedic surgeon.

Maybe I got real lucky, and I am certain what I am doing is bending/breaking certain laws, but I get to do everything: shadow during patient visits, take patient histories, scrub-in at the OR, help close up the wound after the surgery (only horizontal mattresses, because that's all I know how to do), remove plates if a bone needs realignment, go to the cadaver lab for research, practice suture techniques on the cadavers, etc. The only people who had a problem with this were the Nurse/techs in the OR, but the orthopedic surgeon I worked for tells me not to worry about them.

Moreover, I think I'm going to get at least 4 publications out of my year long service here. Some of you might question if I'm being stretched too thin, but I don't think so. I work like a dog. But I love my job.
 
I was thinking about shadowing my PCP, to learn more about FP. I told my FP that I would be going to med school in the fall and asked if I could possibly spend some time with her in the office.

She said it is against the law. Against what law? Are we talking about HIPAA? if so, would it really be that hard to rustle up a brochure about it for me to read and then have her ask if i understood afterwards?

seriously, if i can't understand HIPAA, how am I going to function as a doctor or at the very least a med student?:rolleyes: she'd be doing my school a favor if she made this discovery before matriculation.
 
HIPAA was meant to protect patients' privacy and the confidentiality of their medical records. (Whether it has been successful at doing so is a discussion for another thread.) What it means is that hospitals must disclose when and to whom it will disclose your personal health information and how it will otherwise protect your privacy.

I suspect that some hospitals use HIPPA as a good excuse to avoid doing something which is more work and no benefit to them (having non-employees runing around increasing their liability for unauthorized disclosures of information, etc and providing the institution with no services to offset the increased liability/costs).

If you are an employee of the institution, you have access to information on a "need to know" basis and you could get a little more leeway, I think, in terms of being permitted to shadow a doc (you could make rounds and hear the discussion between the physician and patient but still be unauthorized to access the patient's record and read the results of diagnostic tests, etc).
 
LizzyM said:
HIPAA was meant to protect patients' privacy and the confidentiality of their medical records. (Whether it has been successful at doing so is a discussion for another thread.) What it means is that hospitals must disclose when and to whom it will disclose your personal health information and how it will otherwise protect your privacy.

I suspect that some hospitals use HIPPA as a good excuse to avoid doing something which is more work and no benefit to them (having non-employees runing around increasing their liability for unauthorized disclosures of information, etc and providing the institution with no services to offset the increased liability/costs).

If you are an employee of the institution, you have access to information on a "need to know" basis and you could get a little more leeway, I think, in terms of being permitted to shadow a doc (you could make rounds and hear the discussion between the physician and patient but still be unauthorized to access the patient's record and read the results of diagnostic tests, etc).
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I get that, but careful scrutiny of personnel and file access are not in essence illegal. if she wanted to HIPAA train me, she could have.

why she chose to "dumb it down", i don't know. had she refused and then explained in terms of liability and practice policy, it wouldn't have bothered me. to say that something is illegal, when it clearly is not, is what got to me.
 
(Unrelated to the conversation above me)
The hospital I work in is a teaching hospital. So really, by coming there, you're consenting to be a learning experience. That being said, when I was shadowing, I had to sign some paperwork about HIPAA and attend a couple meetings, but after that, we were golden. The doctors I was shadowing usually just asked patients who were able to respond if they minded having a student in the room, and I'd say 95% of the time, there wasn't a problem.

To the OP, I'd recommend trying to go through your school's career center or possibly your school's pre-med committee. I know our alumni doctors are usually willing to take pre-med students with them - many times because that opportunity was afforded to them years before.
 
Jolie South said:
I get that, but careful scrutiny of personnel and file access are not in essence illegal. if she wanted to HIPAA train me, she could have.

why she chose to "dumb it down", i don't know. had she refused and then explained in terms of liability and practice policy, it wouldn't have bothered me. to say that something is illegal, when it clearly is not, is what got to me.
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You're right. I'm a little slow at the keyboard today and I was not replying to your post (which I'd not yet seen) but rather making a general comment. I think that some docs don't know the law, or know the law but can't be bothered so they make it easy on themselves & say "it's illegal". Alas, I know that most people won't call bull**** when someone they'd like to shadow pulls this kind of crap.
 
variablistic said:
(Unrelated to the conversation above me)
The hospital I work in is a teaching hospital. So really, by coming there, you're consenting to be a learning experience. That being said, when I was shadowing, I had to sign some paperwork about HIPAA and attend a couple meetings, but after that, we were golden. The doctors I was shadowing usually just asked patients who were able to respond if they minded having a student in the room, and I'd say 95% of the time, there wasn't a problem
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+1

I did my shadowing with docs who have appointments at the medical school. This was my experience as well.
 
I also shadowed at a teaching hospital, and all I had to do was sign some papers and attend some HIPAA meetings. They basically just tell you to keep your mouth shut.
 
LizzyM said:
You're right. I'm a little slow at the keyboard today and I was not replying to your post (which I'd not yet seen) but rather making a general comment. I think that some docs don't know the law, or know the law but can't be bothered so they make it easy on themselves & say "it's illegal". Alas, I know that most people won't call bull**** when someone they'd like to shadow pulls this kind of crap.
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"yeah I know it isnt illegal and you're just saying that because you don't understand HIPAA laws or don't want me there.....so, I'll ask again, do you think it's possible for me to shadow you"

Probably wouldnt go over well:laugh: I'm still in my quest, I'm going to talk it over with the new volunteer coordinator, shes a student doing an internship so we'll see how it goes
 
OP: I think it really varies from hospital to hospital. My hospital lets me wheel patients down to Radiology, bring them in from the waiting room and show them to their room, I get to witness a lot of basic procedures and if a trauma comes in I can stand in the corner and observe. I was with a medical technician one night who let me take temperatures and hook up monitors to patients (with her supervision of course, she had to watch me do everything, but it was nice of her to throw me a bone).

Now I'm sure that "technically" I'm not allowed to do anything but change linens, but the people in the ER know that the volunteers in that department are usually people going into medicine in some form or another. I'm usually polite and leave the room if someone has to get undressed or if there's someone crashing, but otherwise they pretty much give me free reign to wander around and help with the gopher work.

All the training I had was a short 2-hour orientation that included an overview on HIPAA and now I can pretty much just come to the ER without an appointment and help out whenever I feel like it. If your current hospital doesn't allow you to get some patient contact then you should probably look into other hospitals / private doctor's offices / clinical trials etc... If you don't know any doctors, the best way to meet one is by volunteering.
 
How much actual "contact" you're going to have is determined by location and moreso by how much the doctor really wants to help you.

Large teaching institutions pretty much let you run wild, especially if you've got a doctor backing you. This was true at Duke, where my entire undergrad medical history and technology class (taught by a physician) signed up as volunteers (got badges and everything) and got to go through the hospital and satellite locations. It's the same here at Jefferson too, where you can sign on as a volunteer and jump through some hoops, or if you've got connections, said person can write you a letter saying you need an ID and, like magic, you're in.

HIPAA is federal, and as such, some administrators/doctors crack down while others don't really care. I could imagine someone in private practice seeing the hassle in explaining to all of his/her patients what that kid sitting in the corner is doing. They probably just don't want to deal with it.
 
honestly, ive come to the conclusions that hospitals manipulate and basically enslave us premeds as free, skilled labor. I mean, WTH! There is no way in hell im going to file papers or deliver blankets or do these "chores". That is a blatant waste of my time (especially since im doing it free). I don't love the hospital that much.


if you want good patient contact, contact physicians directly. DON"T go through the volunteering department. Also, going through the clinic is a good idea. Big hospitals are such A-holes, don't even waste your time going through them. I swore to myself, if i had to do more than 3 hours of paper-filing and slide transporting, i would quit on spot.
 
I pretty much just do paperwork at my hospital volunteering gig. They have a handbook of rules that I'm supposed to follow. Among them are, if you have to put on gloves to do something then you are not supposed to do it. And you may only push a patient in a wheelchair, you may not help them in or out of it, nor are you allowed to lock the wheelchair in place. So basically I have to walk with a transporter or nurse while I push so that they can lock it. So freaking dumb.
 
Depends on the hospital usually. There's no set in stone law about patient interactions, as I'm pretty sure HIPAA relates mostly to the physical medical records themselves. As such, they usually give you some training before "setting you loose" and the patients themselves really need to be aware of your presence. That's why sometimes a doctor is ok with you shadowing some patients, but not the more serious cases where they aren't even aware you exist.
 
I guess I had it easy in this area bc my Dad is a FP, and he set me up with some of his buds. But what I would do is talk to your PCP or if you have any doctor friends, they will probably let you shadow and can probably give you the name of ppl in other specialities that will let you shadow as well..


I dont know about everyones elses experiences, but the patients really didnt care that I was there, in fact most were really talkative and thought it was great that I was interested in medicine. The Doctors were also really nice and excited bc I dont think they get the opportunity to be sort of a "role model" and take someone in under their wing very often.

In fact I had one that randomly just volunteered to write me am "awesome LOR"
 
amwatts0322 said:
I guess I had it easy in this area bc my Dad is a FP, and he set me up with some of his buds. But what I would do is talk to your PCP or if you have any doctor friends, they will probably let you shadow and can probably give you the name of ppl in other specialities that will let you shadow as well..

In fact I had one that randomly just volunteered to write me am "awesome LOR"
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having family in medicine is VERY helpful for gaining meaningful clinical experience. all my clinical experience has come from family contacts, since like my entire family is full of physicians. it seems really unfair, because paperwork garbage is sooo dull, yet it is also about as far as you will go if you just approach the volunteer deptments.
 
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