When does one need to shadow a doctor, about scribing, and how to find shadowing opportunities?

[peregrino]

Three questions:
1. If one has work history in health care, does one need to shadow a doctor?
I have worked as a medical assistant and health aide for many years in different part of the country and not recently. I am renewing my certifications and licences so I can return to the medical field after being a decade out from MA.

2. If I do need to formally shadow, how does one go about finding shadowing positions in an area where one does not know any doctors (other than my own GP)? I no longer live near where I used to work in the health care.

3. Would returning to the medical field as a medical scribe be useful? I am re-updating my medical assistant certifications.

Thanks in advance.

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[Forever Geebs]

Has it been ten years since you were last in a healthcare setting? I only ask because you mentioned you've been a decade removed from MA. A lot has changed in the past ten years, and as a prospective medical student, it would be advantageous for you to commit some (not a significant) amount of time shadowing various specialties. I wouldn't shadow for more than 50 hours.

 

[Kr#36]

1) I would still recommend you do some shadowing, mostly because it is probably the easiest box to check.

2) Start reaching out to physicians you think you may want to shadow. Really just simple networking. Craft a decent email and send it out where you can find appropriate addresses for some docs in the area.

3) Depends what your other options are.

 

[RNtoMD87]

I am an RN that had a doctor offer to let me shadow. Is there anything to know such as

Does it matter what type of doctor they are? He is a GI doc

 

[Mdmom2]

Three questions:
1. If one has work history in health care, does one need to shadow a doctor?
I have worked as a medical assistant and health aide for many years in different part of the country and not recently. I am renewing my certifications and licences so I can return to the medical field after being a decade out from MA.

2. If I do need to formally shadow, how does one go about finding shadowing positions in an area where one does not know any doctors (other than my own GP)? I no longer live near where I used to work in the health care.

3. Would returning to the medical field as a medical scribe be useful? I am re-updating my medical assistant certifications.

Thanks in advance.

Scribing is a great foot in the door. I teach at a medical school and probably 10% of the class now has scribing experience. You will learn the vocabulary, see a lot and learn a lot. Try to read up on every case you can and pay attention to the medicine. Your MA and health aide history will not count for as much as you would like, you need to get going in undergrad.

 

[DokterMom]

The main point of shadowing is for you to have the opportunity to know what a day in the life is like for various physicians in order to more reasonable gauge for yourself whether you would actually enjoy practicing medicine.

As such, it makes sense to shadow near the start of your medical journey and to accumulate enough hours in enough specialties for you to have some general idea of what it's like. Accordingly, you should try to shadow at least one FM or IM physician, maybe someone in EM and a specialist or two. A day with each and that's 50 hours or so, which is probably adequate; 100 or 200 hours simply isn't necessary and (unless a close relative is a physician) risks looking like resume-padding.

If you've already worked as an MA, RN or scribe, you've pretty much seen life as an MD, so your work experience would generally meet this objective and any 'shadowing' would be a nominal 'check the box' activity and understood to be such.