Verdict on physician shadowing usefulness?

[herewego]

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I understand that physician shadowing probably doesn't hold as much weight as real hands on direct interaction with patient exposure...but I've been reading a few accounts of it being near useless/not holding much stock at all in the eyes of adcoms.

Is this true? I know it depends on the school and stuff but feel free to chime in with your opinions.

I'm asking because I've always been under the impression that physician shadowing was an integral part of learning about what doctors actually go through, and that it was important for an applicant. I devoted about ~1 year to shadowing, and had I known it wasn't that important I would have devoted that time to something else...

Thoughts?

 

[Mattabet]

Not useless, but don't get it confused with an actual achievement.

Generally speaking, adcoms are looking at an application for several things, one of which is that you understand what a career in healthcare would be like; that you actually know what you're getting into (unfortunately, for whatever reason, they don't just take your word for it). There are a lot of great ways to get yourself some exposure to healthcare - shadowing is one of them.

Where people get into trouble is that they assume that they can make up for deficiencies in their application with more shadowing. Low MCAT, GPA, lack of extracurriculars, lack of volunteerism, the general fact that you come off as a jerk in an interview setting, etc cannot be ameliorated with shadowing. If you've got a 23 MCAT, or you spit on the interviewer, a million hours of shadowing is not going to make a bit of difference. Once you've proved the 'exposure to healthcare' point, shadowing becomes an exercise in diminishing returns. It's vegetative, where most of the rest of your application should be about active things you've gone out and accomplished.

That's my take, anyway. It's certainly not useless, and it can be pretty interesting, but it's not worth as much as some of the top-tier application garnish.

 

[NotAsking4Much]

I understand that physician shadowing probably doesn't hold as much weight as real hands on direct interaction with patient exposure...but I've been reading a few accounts of it being near useless/not holding much stock at all in the eyes of adcoms.

Is this true? I know it depends on the school and stuff but feel free to chime in with your opinions.

I'm asking because I've always been under the impression that physician shadowing was an integral part of learning about what doctors actually go through, and that it was important for an applicant. I devoted about ~1 year to shadowing, and had I known it wasn't that important I would have devoted that time to something else...

Thoughts?

I think direct patient exposure is obviously the best, but shadowing isn't "useless." I just think there's diminishing returns...for example, people who shadow like 2000 hrs or something (and it seems some people do) might be better directing 1500 hrs of that into something else to diversify their app.

 

[CupcakeMD]

I think it's useful and most schools do view it as important. The question also comes up in interviews quite often.

As for how long you should shadow before it becomes "useless" is another question. Almost everything has diminishing returns. But if you have that many hours, don't look down on it--it's something you should be proud of!

 

[Siverhideo1985]

Why would you want to explore what your future professional life might be like?

That's just a ridiculous concept!

 

[Omni]

One way I'd say to make physician shadowing useful is to actually live the doctor's lifestyle for a day. For example, if you're shadowing a trauma surgeon, get to the hospital the time the doctor does, stay on call as in sleep when the doctor goes to sleep and wake up as soon as the doctor has a job.
You're not only learning the job, but you're also learning seeing the lifestyle/process of the job.
This is easier said than done and obviously, and this is more applicable to some specialties than others.

 

[bashir]

I think it's safest to view it as one of the many unstated requirements. Some adcom members may not see it as important, but do you want to make a bad impression on those who do? I interviewed today, and the worst moment in a bad interview was when my interviewer asked me point blank if I had shadowed, I said no, and he asked "Why not?" There's no good answer to that question.

 

[arrivee]

If you get with the right doctor and really form a connection there, I think it's a totally invaluable experience. I shadowed one doc for a semester, probably 8-10 hours a week, and hit it off -- now he's my mentor, we talk every once in a while, I get advice, it's awesome. Plus, while I was shadowing, he was letting me make the diagnoses first (after I had watched him for a few weeks) and teaching me via the socratic method.

So I definitely didn't feel like I was just sitting around. My word obviously wasn't the final say, but I was like an unofficial part of the team (and in the eyes of the patient, a very "official"-looking member in my white coat). Don't shadow for the sake of shadowing -- find something you like, someone you like and go from there. Even if adcoms didn't care (which somehow I doubt), I learned a great amount about the trials and tribulations of being a physician and also got to learn much about a specific specialty.