Working in a Hospital vs. Shadowing

[wolverinepwns]

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Fellow SDNers,
I have worked in a hospital as an ER tech and EKG Monitor tech for over 5 years (since freshman year college). I was looking at some of the secondary apps and they ask for number of hours shadowing physicians and whom and what not. Naturally, I have worked with doctors at the hospital and know many of them as a result. So if you were in my situation what would you do? If shadowing is considered being attached to one doctor and moving room to room with them as they see their patient then yeah i haven't shadowed any, but it it means working with doctors, seeing what they do on a daily basis, how they approach patients, how they communicate with them, with the nurses, with family, their dictations, the labs and procedure they order, then i would have thousands of hours of shadowing? any opinions? 😕

cheers

 

[aidama]

Fellow SDNers,
I have worked in a hospital as an ER tech and EKG Monitor tech for over 5 years (since freshman year college). I was looking at some of the secondary apps and they ask for number of hours shadowing physicians and whom and what not. Naturally, I have worked with doctors at the hospital and know many of them as a result. So if you were in my situation what would you do? If shadowing is considered being attached to one doctor and moving room to room with them as they see their patient then yeah i haven't shadowed any, but it it means working with doctors, seeing what they do on a daily basis, how they approach patients, how they communicate with them, with the nurses, with family, their dictations, the labs and procedure they order, then i would have thousands of hours of shadowing? any opinions? 😕

cheers

Sooo... what do you have to be concerned about? 😀 Working as an ER EKG tech is an amazing experience that rewards you with unique opportunities to observe multiple physicians and get direct patient interaction in high-pressure situations. You're a team member physicians depend on to get the information they need to evaluate a patient. I don't think you even need to worry about not having "officially" shadowed a physician - that kind of thing is for people who don't have the kind of opportunity you do. You probably have a wealth of things to share and write about in your PS/interview/secondary prompts. So mention that you've done this, your experiences with patients, watching docs, etc. My feeling is that you're fine - I say this having worked as an ER scribe for a year.

Good luck on your secondaries!

 

[wolverinepwns]

Sooo... what do you have to be concerned about? 😀 Working as an ER EKG tech is an amazing experience that rewards you with unique opportunities to observe multiple physicians and get direct patient interaction in high-pressure situations. You're a team member physicians depend on to get the information they need to evaluate a patient. I don't think you even need to worry about not having "officially" shadowed a physician - that kind of thing is for people who don't have the kind of opportunity you do. You probably have a wealth of things to share and write about in your PS/interview/secondary prompts. So mention that you've done this, your experiences with patients, watching docs, etc. My feeling is that you're fine - I say this having worked as an ER scribe for a year.

Good luck on your secondaries!

thanks for the insight, I'm not too worried about the experience as much as what to put on the shadowing part of app. like for example in the spot where it says how many hours have you shadowed Dr. X. ? I obviously won't be puttin zero, yet I don't think it really makes sence to put +1000 hrs either.

 

[aidama]

thanks for the insight, I'm not too worried about the experience as much as what to put on the shadowing part of app. like for example in the spot where it says how many hours have you shadowed Dr. X. ? I obviously won't be puttin zero, yet I don't think it really makes sence to put +1000 hrs either.

Sure it does - I think it makes sense to put however much time it really you spend every week as a tech. You could say something like, "shadowed: multiple ER physicians, 20 hrs a week, 5 yrs" and for the description write how you are a tech and are able to observe multiple physicians on your shifts and how you work directly with/for them. You're not directly attached to the physician's hip but I'm sure you've seen some pretty rugged stuff too. If you are really nervous you could even put names of some of the physicians that work in the department, though I don't think that's entirely necessary.

For example, I'll be doing something similar. I work with a different doctor each shift - 10 docs use scribes in the ER. I work 8 hours a day, about 3 times a week, a maximum of 80 hours in a month, for over a year. You're damn skippy I'll be putting 1000+ hours on my application! But remember it's not about the accrued hours as much as it is what you've learned about medicine.

 

[wolverinepwns]

Sure it does - I think it makes sense to put however much time it really you spend every week as a tech. You could say something like, "shadowed: multiple ER physicians, 20 hrs a week, 5 yrs" and for the description write how you are a tech and are able to observe multiple physicians on your shifts and how you work directly with/for them. You're not directly attached to the physician's hip but I'm sure you've seen some pretty rugged stuff too. If you are really nervous you could even put names of some of the physicians that work in the department, though I don't think that's entirely necessary.

For example, I'll be doing something similar. I work with a different doctor each shift - 10 docs use scribes in the ER. I work 8 hours a day, about 3 times a week, a maximum of 80 hours in a month, for over a year. You're damn skippy I'll be putting 1000+ hours on my application! But remember it's not about the accrued hours as much as it is what you've learned about medicine.

Perfect, thanks for the advice, I mean when it came down to the interview and PS i am definately gonna talk about it I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being irrational for puttin it under the shadowing. So I guess i'm covered for the shadowing part for sure. Thank you! good luck with your apps

 

[DrDre2001]

Are you not putting down ER TECH in your EC's?

If you are, isn't it wrong to put it down as shadowing also?

When I volunteered I saw much of what the Dr's on my floor did. But I didn't list it as BOTH volunteering and shadowing.

Edit: I see you have 1000+ hours at the ER Tech Job. Well, then you can easily consider like 50 of those hours to be shadowing, and the other 950 to be an EC of ER Tech. 50 hours of shadowing is more than good enough.

 

[Skippygonenuts]

Just ask some of the docs that u know if they would be willing to write u an LoR and include in it that you've been shadowing them...

 

[wolverinepwns]

Just ask some of the docs that u know if they would be willing to write u an LoR and include in it that you've been shadowing them...

I actually started asking them a couple of weeks ago, but most of them are MDs, or at least the ones that know me personally. So I'm contacting some of the DOs to see where that leads