Hi, everyone,
I think I posted this at the wrong place yesterday. Anyway, here it is. I am currently taking pre-req classes and volunteering at a hospice. I am looking for some shadow experience. I moved to this town not too long ago so I have very few contact. Can anyone share with me how/where you approach a doctor and ask for shadowing him/her if you don’t know him/her personally. My other question is, the med school stats show that 80% candidates have research experience. I didn’t have any research experience before and would love to have some now. I am very interestd in chem/bio. But I only have two more years left before I apply to the medical school. How can I have this part done? Any input is appreciated.
P.S. I am so grateful that I found this place. I checked this site everyday and got inspired every single time. Thank you
I don’t have an answer for you, helensun, but I have an additional question to whoever might - how early in the process should the shadowing and volunteering begin? I’m basically at the beginning of my college career, so it will be a minimum of 4 years before i apply to medical school and I’ll also be working close to full time up until then. So how does one fit this in? How soon should it be started? And how much of it (length of time) is required?
marianne,
these are the questions I want to ask too. I also posted this question at another forum “apply medical school” (by mistake). Emergency gave me some advices on the research part. You can go there and take a look. I am sure there are more people will give us some good advices as they always do.
helen
Call the premed office/adviser at the school where you are taking classes and see if they have a list of doctors who are open to shadowing in your area.
I started off by asking my son’s pediatrician about a good place to volunteer, and he offered to let me shadow. Then, because I didn’t know anyone else, he called a good many of his friends/contacts and only found one that was open to me shadowing him. It seems because of HIPAA, etc a good many physicians (or their office policies) around here would rather not fool with it. So I finally called the premed adviser and she set me up with a whole list of names of doctors in the area that have agreed to allow student shadowing.
As for the amount of shadowing to do, I don’t think there’s any one right answer. I’ve been told that it’s the quality of the experience that counts, not the quantity. It’s frustrating not knowing if I’ve done enough or not.