Your advice

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IvorArcher

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Let's cut straight to business. I'm moving from a certain city after a semester. Is it worthwhile to shadow doctors I will only know for roughly 3-5 months? I'll be living in a residence hall at a new university in a different city. I will live there for 3+ years.
 
YES.

Aside from all shadowing experiences looking great on a resume, being exposed to different specialties and situations increases your exposure to medicine and give your more substance to discuss in interviews. Take every shadowing opportunity you can get.

All it takes is one procedure or one patient to impact you.
 
yes, very worthwhile. it might not be long enough to get a letter from the doc, but that's probably a good thing. letters from docs you shadowed are not very helpful, usually.
 
Thanks for the replies! Will do! Btw I'm only a freshmen. Better early anyways.
 
I'll be the dissenter with the caveat that I wouldn't shadow if you had something better you could be doing with your time.

Personally, I think now (and thought when a premed) that shadowing was a useless way to spend time and it was nothing more than "checking off a box" that adcoms expected you to have checked. I realize adcoms expect you to have done some shadowing, so do it at some point. You won't learn anything substantative that will help you in med school. Call me a cynic, but you're just not in a place to benefit from shadowing as a premed. I really don't think many people entering med school even really get what being a doctor is, not for lack of trying, but because it's just really hard to get it without being immersed in it. You can't get that from a couple hours a week.

You certainly don't have enough time to do any decent research. If you need the money, I would try to find a part time job either in the medical field or tutoring. If you don't need the money, volunteer doing something you're passionate about - you'll get much more (and be more likely to stay committed) if you get involved in a volunteer project that you can really get behind.

Good luck.
 
Personally I would. I mean you don't have to shadow every doctor 500+ hours for it to be a valuable experience or to even get a letter.
 
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