Started shadowing today

Good work?

 

You actually got to talk to the patients and give advice? Man, my shadowing experience involved me getting in the way of the DO when he was doing OMM on patients. I ended up standing in corner for the vast majority of the time

 

Guess I'll ask this question here.

How many hours should you shadow a physician? I know there is probably no set number of hours that you need to, but is there a ballpark number? I have heard a few different things from other people, but I don't think I have asked this forum. Some people have said that they have done like, 100+ hours shadowing. Others have told me that is ridiculous to do that much because even adcoms will think that is excessive, that you should have been doing something else with all that time, like volunteering or something. They say it is not so much the amount of shadowing you have done, as long as it is past a certain amount. They say that 50 hours shadowing is no better than 20-25 hours.
What do you guys say?

And, good job Penn State future doc.