What is Shadowing experience technically?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Nafis64

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
May 20, 2009
Messages
307
Reaction score
3
Okay, so I read and hear how shadowing is good to do and great to include on your application, however, when I spoke to dean of admissions at two schools they basically said shadowing is nothing special. I am not sure why, but they hinted at it how it is more of a who you know type thing and is no way hands on clinical. You basically shadow and see what life is like to be a doctor and what they do. Yet, stuff I read on these threads place more emphasis on it..confusing?

Which brings me to my question. When people mention they shadowed a physician are they referring to a weekly thing that occurred for a year or a few one time things. I ask because I've shadowed doctors here and there, but it was around 6-8 times for about 8 hours a time, and that was it. Does that count as shadowing or what? I've work personally in a clinic working with patients directly so I don't need it for that, but I shadowed to see different specialties.
 
Okay, so I read and hear how shadowing is good to do and great to include on your application, however, when I spoke to dean of admissions at two schools they basically said shadowing is nothing special. I am not sure why, but they hinted at it how it is more of a who you know type thing and is no way hands on clinical. You basically shadow and see what life is like to be a doctor and what they do. Yet, stuff I read on these threads place more emphasis on it..confusing?

Which brings me to my question. When people mention they shadowed a physician are they referring to a weekly thing that occurred for a year or a few one time things. I ask because I've shadowed doctors here and there, but it was around 6-8 times for about 8 hours a time, and that was it. Does that count as shadowing or what? I've work personally in a clinic working with patients directly so I don't need it for that, but I shadowed to see different specialties.

As you already stated, that is shadowing. The point of shadowing is to see what physicians do with their time; you are not there to learn medicine. Unless you develop a nice relationship with the doc and you would get something more from continued exposure, one or two days per doc is great.
 
Yeah, I did mine about 4-5 hours at a time, about once a week for 10 weeks in the ER. But I was also doing it for my internship credit graduation requirement and needed 45 hours minimum for it to count.
 
Okay, so I read and hear how shadowing is good to do and great to include on your application, however, when I spoke to dean of admissions at two schools they basically said shadowing is nothing special. I am not sure why, but they hinted at it how it is more of a who you know type thing and is no way hands on clinical. You basically shadow and see what life is like to be a doctor and what they do. Yet, stuff I read on these threads place more emphasis on it..confusing?

Which brings me to my question. When people mention they shadowed a physician are they referring to a weekly thing that occurred for a year or a few one time things. I ask because I've shadowed doctors here and there, but it was around 6-8 times for about 8 hours a time, and that was it. Does that count as shadowing or what? I've work personally in a clinic working with patients directly so I don't need it for that, but I shadowed to see different specialties.

I agree that most shadowing experiences are nothing special because it is almost mandatory that you have shadowing experience. Every applicant should have 100+ hours of shadowing experience. First of all because schools will expect shadowing and second because you want to be sure that medical school is worth it to you. Some typical med school interview questions:
Why become a doctor?
How do you know that being a physician is right for you?
If you just want to help people, why not nursing school?
What have you done to be sure this is what you want to do?

Without shadowing physicians and understanding their day to day roles, it will be much harder to answer interview questions eloquently. Medical schools want students that have obviously dedicated themselves to the field. State governments often subsidize medical schools based on the number of students. It costs over $250,000 for the state to educate 1 of us. Schools have an interest in keeping medical students in school - money. Med school is unique in that they HATE drop-outs. They will do everything they can to keep you in school. Therefore, they want to be sure that you know EXACTLY what you are getting yourself into, and basically wouldn't dream of doing anything else.

You don't have to do anything hands-on or special, but if you did, that would help your application. Obviously anything special in your app is a bonus. On the other hand, I wouldn't go overboard on shadowing either. For more hands-on activities, look into doing a medical mission trip or something.
 
OP, I think the shadowing you've done is fine. Typically people list 8-40 hours for each of 2-3 docs. Some go way beyond this, but hopefully that's because of a special relationship with the physician and that they are getting a lot out of the experience,a nd not because they think it's expected.
 
Top