What to expect when shadowing doctors?

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mslee

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I don't have any shadowing experiences and it'd be amazing to get some this summer. However, for the next two months, I'm already tied up taking 3 summer courses (pchem :scared:) and will start working in a research lab (by the way, do med schools care at all about having research experience if it's not directly related to medicine and is more pure-science-focused?).

So... do shadowing often take all day long and a lot of time commitment? I'm not familiar with how this works. Can I just go to the website of the university hospital near my school and email a bunch of doctors asking if I can shadow? (as part of shadowing, can I even see surgeries and stuff if I get lucky-- that is, should I feel free to contact surgeons about shadowing also?)

Also, I heard something about doing some free filing work and stuff beforehand, what is that about? Is that something to expect or state when I first approach doctors?

And what will I be doing once I find a doctor who's willing to let me shadow--mostly follow around and observe?

Any tips?? Thanks!!

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any docs that respond, will not mind you tagging along and observing. They usually tell you when they are available and you can work out a schedule with them. Its really up to you and the doc...have an open discussion on how many hrs you have on certain days and preferrable hours for you to shadow him/her.

If you want to impress the doc, bring a small pad to take notes on and dress accordingly.
 
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You are a fly on the wall. Most of the time, you will be doing nothing, as it should be. :D
 
any docs that respond, will not mind you tagging along and observing. They usually tell you when they are available and you can work out a schedule with them. Its really up to you and the doc...have an open discussion on how many hrs you have on certain days and preferrable hours for you to shadow him/her.

If you want to impress the doc, bring a small pad to take notes on and dress accordingly.

I don't think it's a good idea to take notes. This is probably a HIPAA violation as someone could get a hold of the notes and they may imply or reflect something about a patient. Second of all, why would you need to take notes? It's not like you are goign to be performing surgery the next day.
 
Ive only shadowed a very small number of docs and for only very, very short periods. Im applying right now and Ive probably done a total of 40-50 hrs of shadowing over a 4 yrs period.

I did them just to get a flavor for a particular speciality, as that was it. (but ive also worked as an emt with the city's ems service. ive been around docs a lot so i didnt feel like i needed to shadow them to gain "medical experience.") In my experiences, the doctors rarely took the time to explain stuff to me. Then again, I dont blame them....most of them were running from one room to another and in addition to answering the patients questions, they had to do charting and stuff, so where was the time time to explain stuff to a noob like me?

I live and die by the sentiment that if you want to get good experience, best way to do it is try to get a certification and work in a hosp dept. that is the best way to see docs in action, and since its more than just you and the doc (assuming you do your shadowing in a clinic environment) you can get nurses or whomever to help explain stuff to you, as well.
 
I'm a PGY-3 (well, in three weeks) Emergency Medicine resident. If anybody wants to shadow me I would be happy to have you tag along while I convince you that every other specialty but Emergency Medicine blows....because they do, you understand.

What to expect? A pretty good variety of sick people from the ridiculous to the gravely-injured-and-aint-gonna-make-it. You can also thrill to the sights and sounds of residents, like me, who don't know everything and still need a little guidance. (I'll be a second year EM resident in three weeks. Don't ask. It's a long story.)

I'll be in the ICU as the senior resident in July which is interesting in its own right.

I can't provide you with a letter of recommendation or anything like that because those need to come from attendings.

I'm in Michigan. PM me.
 
any docs that respond, will not mind you tagging along and observing. They usually tell you when they are available and you can work out a schedule with them. Its really up to you and the doc...have an open discussion on how many hrs you have on certain days and preferrable hours for you to shadow him/her.

If you want to impress the doc, bring a small pad to take notes on and dress accordingly.

Oh fer' God's sake. Why would you want to take notes? It's not necessary.
 
Shadowing is completely different depending on the doc you shadow. From my experience of shadowing, only the more out-going patient-centered docs want to have some kid following them around so my experiences have been great.

As far as setting up shadowing, I asked a friend in medical school to give me some names of some doctors he has met and then I just emailed them. Out of the 8 I emailed I got responses from 4 so don't expect everyone to want someone following them around.
 
I didn't know you were allowed to shadow residents... Anyway you don't need a big time committment, just shadow a few doctors for a few days or something. The doctor I shadowed was really great and explained everything to me, let me do parts of exams, and a few times, I'm sure jokingly:rolleyes: asked what I thought the diagnosis would be. But I guess depending on the doctor you shadow, it depends on what you would get to do. I'm not sure about the whole shadowing a surgeon part, I would think it's harder these days to find one that woud let you with HIPPA and all.
 
Ive only shadowed a very small number of docs and for only very, very short periods. Im applying right now and Ive probably done a total of 40-50 hrs of shadowing over a 4 yrs period.

I did them just to get a flavor for a particular speciality, as that was it. (but ive also worked as an emt with the city's ems service. ive been around docs a lot so i didnt feel like i needed to shadow them to gain "medical experience.") In my experiences, the doctors rarely took the time to explain stuff to me. Then again, I dont blame them....most of them were running from one room to another and in addition to answering the patients questions, they had to do charting and stuff, so where was the time time to explain stuff to a noob like me?

I live and die by the sentiment that if you want to get good experience, best way to do it is try to get a certification and work in a hosp dept. that is the best way to see docs in action, and since its more than just you and the doc (assuming you do your shadowing in a clinic environment) you can get nurses or whomever to help explain stuff to you, as well.

My shadowing experience was very fun, but probably because I did it in my hometown where everyone knows everyone else, and plus my dad's a doctor. I shadowed his partner and we just made fun of my dad and the doctor also answered every question I had while taking time to make sure I understood everything. In fact, I had other doctors asking me to watch them do surgery because they enjoy teaching me. This is the beauty of being from a rural Southern-hospitable community.

So my advice is to try and shadow a family friend or someone you know...being from the city is probably harder, but try to network and see what connections you have. If the doctor is a total stranger, then he may be reluctant to show interest in you.
 
I shadowed various doctors over the summer. It was at a teaching hospital so they were really great about explaining things and, well, teaching me. As has been said many times before, the time committment is up to you. I wanted the full experience and didn't have anything else to do for the summer, so I watches surgery, went to clinics (this was actually the majority of my experience), went to the meetins at sunrise, went to a couple of classes that the med students invited me to, went to the free lunches, went to journal club meetings, and a bunch of other stuff. Hmm someone should start a new thread about what is the most unusual experience you've had shadowing a doctor. Go ahead...I'm too shy.
 
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my opinion of shadowing is that it should be used to gather information to help you in making a decision of medicine as a career or help in choosing a particular field in medicine. since you have not shadowed and probably have little exposure to medicine overall (just and assumption), i would make the recommendation that you choose a field which will give you the greatest exposure to multiple fields at once. the ED is probably the best start. it will give you the opportunity to see both emergent and non-emergent care as well as get exposure to multiple specialties (through consults). through trauma you can get exposure to the OR. this would probably get you the most bang for your buck.

so how could you do that? well, you could contact the ER residency program director of your local hospital and see how you could set that up. you could also volunteer, or shadow a specific physician. if shadowing a specific physician, you may want to ask around to see who would be the best to shadow (some people are better than others).

on another note, one of the problems we encounter when students come to shadow in ortho (non medical students, high school or college) is the HIPPA issue, so you may have to do a short course on HIPPA and make sure you vaccinations are up to date, including TB test.
 
I didn't know you were allowed to shadow residents... Anyway you don't need a big time committment, just shadow a few doctors for a few days or something. The doctor I shadowed was really great and explained everything to me, let me do parts of exams, and a few times, I'm sure jokingly:rolleyes: asked what I thought the diagnosis would be. But I guess depending on the doctor you shadow, it depends on what you would get to do. I'm not sure about the whole shadowing a surgeon part, I would think it's harder these days to find one that woud let you with HIPPA and all.

In larger hospitals, sometimes the residents do more work than the attendings themselves!
 
Take notes. If for no other reason I found it makes the patients feel better about you being there. On the first day I shadowed I just followed the doctor around, and every patient just stared at me. Even though the doctor explained why I was there, they obviously felt really uncomfortable having me in the room. The next day I carried around a note pad and wrote constantly while I was in the room. Suddenly I was invisible. It also gives you somewhere to look when the patient has a particularly shocking case of something-or-other.


Taking notes makes them feel better?!? I don't think I'd want someone taking notes about my condition or disease really. Besides, you'd have to shred the notes or at least give them to the doctor to put in someone's file. I doubt they let you take notes and walk out of the clinic with them.

Your shadowing experience sounds like it sucked. Your doctor had to explain why you were there? You mean he didn't get the patient's permission before hand for you to enter the room? Shadowing in a clinic seems boring too, I mean, we've all been to the doctor and had our temp taken and blood pressure, so nothing new there. Surgery is what you really need to do for your shadowing experience, or ER, where you get to go behind the scenes. you learn more from these experiences than from a clinical/routine office checkup
 
my opinion of shadowing is that it should be used to gather information to help you in making a decision of medicine as a career or help in choosing a particular field in medicine. since you have not shadowed and probably have little exposure to medicine overall (just and assumption), i would make the recommendation that you choose a field which will give you the greatest exposure to multiple fields at once. the ED is probably the best start. it will give you the opportunity to see both emergent and non-emergent care as well as get exposure to multiple specialties (through consults). through trauma you can get exposure to the OR. this would probably get you the most bang for your buck.

so how could you do that? well, you could contact the ER residency program director of your local hospital and see how you could set that up. you could also volunteer, or shadow a specific physician. if shadowing a specific physician, you may want to ask around to see who would be the best to shadow (some people are better than others).

on another note, one of the problems we encounter when students come to shadow in ortho (non medical students, high school or college) is the HIPPA issue, so you may have to do a short course on HIPPA and make sure you vaccinations are up to date, including TB test.

Yea. When I shadowed I had to sign some paperwork and send vaccination reports in...nothing big.

I also highly recommend the ED for shadowing if you could only get one choice. You get a taste of everything....good and bad. I also followed surgeons around and whenever they'd go take a break or had a gap many of the other guys would let me hop into the OR with them. So in a single day I saw ortho, g.s., gyno, and vascular stuff....I was doing 12-14 hour days for 2 weeks straight though...so my experience was a bit different.
 
Yea. When I shadowed I had to sign some paperwork and send vaccination reports in...nothing big.

I also highly recommend the ED for shadowing if you could only get one choice. You get a taste of everything....good and bad. I also followed surgeons around and whenever they'd go take a break or had a gap many of the other guys would let me hop into the OR with them. So in a single day I saw ortho, g.s., gyno, and vascular stuff....I was doing 12-14 hour days for 2 weeks straight though...so my experience was a bit different.

If not ED (because it can get busy sometimes), then try radiology. Since what they mostly do is interpret stuff without a patient around, you can easily ask questions! :D
 
This might be a long shot but are there any docs in the Phoenix or Tucson area that might allow me to shadow?

I'm a physiology major (and of course pre-med), just trying to gain as much hands on experience as possible.

PM me if interested! :D
 
I've always wondered where the bitterness came from. now it all makes sense.

:idea:


You know, we kind of like Michigan. At first my wife was dreading the winters but while it was pretty cold, it wasn't that bad. And here it is the middle of June and we can work out in the yard all day without getting heat stroke like we would do in Louisiana starting about, oh, April maybe.

And while the state as a whole may be going down the crapper, we live in a nice neighborhood with excellent schools so there's no real downside. We may even stay here when I finish my residency if I can get a job in the area.

And I am not bitter, or jaded. I merely comment on the conventional wisdom and people get their panties in a wad.
 
I don't think it's a good idea to take notes. This is probably a HIPAA violation as someone could get a hold of the notes and they may imply or reflect something about a patient. Second of all, why would you need to take notes? It's not like you are goign to be performing surgery the next day.

I shadowed a doc and was expected to perform a total knee the next day... ah the lawsuits.

Oh fer' God's sake. Why would you want to take notes? It's not necessary.

I would fly out to wherever the hell you are just to shadow you panda... and I'm sorry, I'd have to take notes b/c the wit that is panda must be preserved in a museum for that ages.
 
My shadowing experience was extensive. I got to experience meetings, clinical hours, and surgury over a period of 3 months at an orthopedic surgury private practice. Honestly I wanted to put in a lot of clinical hours: I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just interested in the 'exciting' parts of medicine, but also by the 'everyday' clinical parts.

Getting the patients permission for clinical shadowing involved the doctor walking in the room and saying "hi Mr./Mrs. XXX, before we start this young man is a clinical shadow with me today, he thinks he might want to be a doctor someday and he's trying to get a feel for it. If your comfortable with it he's going to sit in with us today, if you'd rather him leave just let me know". Considering that all the consultations that weren't pre-surgical were only a few minutes that was a pretty extensive introduction. The procedure for getting me into surgury was somewhat more involved.

I have no idea why the notes seemed to make people comfortable, but they did. My theory is that people are comfortable with people knowing anything about them, as long as they percieve those people as medical personel. As long as I was writing stuff, I guess they lumped me into the group of 'people who are supposed to be here' and stopped feeling embarassed around me. Without the notepad, I was out of place.

fair enough...
 
haha, this forum is just flying with new posts! thanks for all the responses! i just realized I had to go back like 6 pages to find my post again. So I think I'll definitely try ED and hopefully I'll get lucky.

But for me to do that... I need to actually contact some doctors :eek: So when I approach them, do I just tell them straight out that I'm a pre med student interested in shadowing? What else should I mention? For instance, do I need to mention something about how I can do some busy work if they need some volunteers to do that to compensate? (would that make this request for shadowing more appealing?!)

I have hospital volunteering experiences but none were that great. I mostly sat there with the office ladies and just ran errands bringing equipments to the nurses for surgeries (but never got to watch one...)... and office ladies who complained the whole time about how their jobs suck btw : ( Anyway, b/c I've been volunteering, I have hospital volunteer orientation, TB tests, etc that's all good till this fall... should I mention that also?
 
anyone please?? :eek:

just pick a doctor, ask them, saying that you would like to watch them do surgery or something, and ask that they set up a time and ask the patients permission. also say you are interested in being a doctor, and you want to know what it is like. however, you may need to talk to hospital HR, because some hospitals require that you take an orientation class, like HIPAA related or a course about the facility for your own safety and for others. but just keep asking around and be assertive.
 
just pick a doctor, ask them, saying that you would like to watch them do surgery or something, and ask that they set up a time and ask the patients permission. also say you are interested in being a doctor, and you want to know what it is like. however, you may need to talk to hospital HR, because some hospitals require that you take an orientation class, like HIPAA related or a course about the facility for your own safety and for others. but just keep asking around and be assertive.

I'm sure it depends on the hospitals, but usually, do students shadowing have to take a separate orientation aside from the one they had to go through already to be a regular volunteer at the hospital (if they had any)?
 
You know, we kind of like Michigan. At first my wife was dreading the winters but while it was pretty cold, it wasn't that bad. And here it is the middle of June and we can work out in the yard all day without getting heat stroke like we would do in Louisiana starting about, oh, April maybe.

And while the state as a whole may be going down the crapper, we live in a nice neighborhood with excellent schools so there's no real downside. We may even stay here when I finish my residency if I can get a job in the area.

And I am not bitter, or jaded. I merely comment on the conventional wisdom and people get their panties in a wad.

it really does vary by region... Honestly, west Michigan has become a lot more appealing the more I've visited, even if you do have to buy everything from mid-level marketers. Metro Detroit also has its nice spots, though it's interesting that the sprawl has come to a screeching halt.
 
it really does vary by region... Honestly, west Michigan has become a lot more appealing the more I've visited, even if you do have to buy everything from mid-level marketers.
Have you been there in winter? :laugh:
 
Have you been there in winter? :laugh:

lived in the Flint area my whole life... born in Minnesota... though at least the west side gets some better snow.

it's how I'm going to handle summers when my family moves to Florida that I don't understand.
 
lived in the Flint area my whole life... born in Minnesota... though at least the west side gets some better snow.

it's how I'm going to handle summers when my family moves to Florida that I don't understand.
Ah, I just moved to Michigan and my fiancee is from the western side of the state, right on the Lake. The winters are a bit worse than what I am used to.....
 
Shadowed a doctor on Monday. For the most part, you aren't expected to do anything. I tried to remain out of the way and very silent because people are being treated and I'm not sure some patients were actually comfortable with me being there even those the doctor asked.

Remember, you are there to observe. Rarely will you get the chance to do more (and that's usually after several occasions).
 
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