Shadowing Experience and Tips - Feel free to comment and share your tips!

General Premed Discussion
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Hello everybody! I wanted to start a new forum/blog regarding the topic of shadowing. Many Pre-Medicine students have been struggling to find opportunities to shadow and I would like everybody who have had success with finding shadowing opportunities to comment on this forum/blog to share their methods and ways to finding shadowing. Let’s collaborate and help each other out!

Here is my personal experience and tips for shadowing. Hopefully this helps students who need help finding shadowing. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific question also!

Shadowing experience 1: Medical Center of the Rockies (MCR) Hospital OR Physicians (Stopped), Loveland, CO

Shadowed different OR surgeons, mostly did night shifts after 4pm as I had a summer internship at the time

How I obtained the shadowing opportunity: I started out by volunteering at the MCR in the ER for about 3 years. Then, I switched over to volunteering in the OR Surgery Front Desk. Instantly, I met all the scrub nurses and had valuable connections with them, since I was in charge of bringing the patients back to the surgical preparation room. There, I asked them if I could shadow the OR surgeons. The next day, I was in the OR. I remember the first surgery I observed was a 5-hour long surgery (Lumbar Laminectomy for Spinal Stenosis) that lasted from 5 - 10pm.

A few weeks later I met Dr. Warren Schutte.

Shadowing experience 2: Dr. Warren Schutte MD, Plastic Surgeon, Front Range Plastic Surgery (Continuing), Loveland, CO

Shadowed a private practice under Dr. Schutte. I was absolutely amazed at his technical abilities to use his hands in complex ways to turn something that looked horrendous to an end product that looked beautiful. For example, I observed him surgically remove a tumor from a patient’s breast and then suture it back together so it looked like a regular breast again. It only took him 1.5 hours! I also got a ton of observation on what it is like to have good bedside manners by following him around to patients.

If you are interested about his practice, this is his website: https://www.frontrangeplasticsurgery.com/

How I obtained the shadowing opportunity: I met him in the MCR OR during a day I was shadowing. He had to stop by MCR for a quick consult. It was probably the luckiest day of my life. Meeting him was a godsend as I suddenly had a mentor. I’ve learned so much from him.

Shadowing experience 3: Denver Health Teaching Hospital Cardiology Residents and Attending Physicians (Continuing), Denver, CO

Shadowed residents and attendings at Denver Health. I wanted a shadowing place closer to my college (Golden, CO) had a blast coming into the hospital at 7am to listen into pre-rounds. I realized even residents make mistakes when diagnosing patients during the pre-rounds!
Then, rounds would begin and I would follow a group of 3 residents with an attending to 7-10 patients. I got to listen to a patient’s irregular heartbeat through a stethoscope and even got to practice one of their techniques by pushing on the abdomen to see if the carotid artery would dilate. It was a great experience overall and I got to talk to many residents!

How I obtained the shadowing opportunity: It took me about 3 months to get everything ready to go for shadowing here. I was actually the first person to shadow at this teaching hospital that was a Pre-Med student. Everybody thought I was a medical student the first day I joined them. A lot of talking on the phone and just taking the initiative to follow up and continue expressing my interest in shadowing cardiology! I learned that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So don’t be afraid or embarrassed!

Shadowing experience 4: Colorado Children’s Hospital (University of Colorado Medical School Afflicted Hospital) - Orthopedic Pediatric Surgery (Continuing)

I am planning to shadow Dr. Mark Erickson MD (Orthopedic Pediatric Surgeon) during Spring Break of 2018 to learn about Orthopedic Pediatric Surgery. Paperwork has been turned in, just waiting on the confirmation! It will be exciting to see what it is like to be a surgeon for children.

Interesting fact: Dr. Mark Erickson operated on me when I was young and he was the one who planted a seed in my head about becoming a physician. How cool would it be to finally come full circle and shadow him?
How I obtained the shadowing opportunity: Again, just calling. This shadowing program required an application and a personal statement. I was happy to spend the time to do this as I knew this opportunity would be amazing for me.

That’s it for now! As a side note, I have had no initial connections with medicine prior to these shadowing experiences. My parents are not doctors and I didn’t know anyone that were physicians prior. In this way, if you are a Pre-Medicine student reading this post wanting to get started on shadowing, be confident in yourself and trust the process! Be curious and don’t be afraid to open your mouth!
Let me know if I can be of assistance in helping you find your shadowing opportunities!

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Can you talk more on how to maximize your shadowing experience? Also, it looks like you only shadow each physician one time? How to balance the length and diversity of physicians of shadowing? Thanks!

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Those are great questions. For shadowing, you should be observing when the doctor is with the patient. Once they are done talking, you can ask questions for clarification regarding the case or other questions in general. Also, if you can, bring a notepad with you to take notes on what you are seeing (i.e. emotions of the patient, how the physician treats the patient, etc.). Writing these things down, even if it is after the shadowing experience will help in your essays on the application.

For balancing the length and diversity, I think the best thing is to start early and shadow on rotations. For example, if I had a week off, I would shadow half of the week with one physician and the other half with another. Also, for each shadowing experience, I have about 50 hours each, which I think is good enough.

Hopefully that helps. Let me know if you have followup questions.

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Thanks for the great insight. I’m currently having an issue finding physicians to shadow and was wondering if anybody had any general tips on how they navigated the process? Up to this point, I’ve been cold calling the offices of physicians who specialize in areas I’m interested in and have had trouble getting past the receptionists. Most of the time they tell me that I would either need to be a medical student already, which seems like a catch-22 or that I’d need to volunteer through a general volunteer program. I already volunteer in the ER and ICU of a large hospital and have found it near impossible to get a nurse to stop and talk with me, let alone a physician. Would it be worth it to try and leave messages with a nurse who works for that doctor, most of the receptionists refuse to take a message once they’ve told me that I have to go through the volunteer program? Just a little confused and irritated that the process seems this difficult. I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that I’m a non-trad who doesn’t have access to the shadowing programs that I know a lot of the universities in my area offer. Appreciate any recommendations/ advice.

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I would try to talk to one of the nurses again and ask if you can shadow one of the physicians. Another option is to find one of the physicians and ask if he/she had a few minutes to talk. Ask if they would let you shadow or at least leave you someone they know that would possibly let you shadow. Connections will help immensely at this point (that’s how I got all my shadowing in - by networking)

If not, try cold calling private practices or clinics. At those places, it is easier to find shadowing.

If you wouldn’t mind me asking, which part of the US do you live?

Hope that helps!

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Thanks, mchun for your input. Actually, I just got a bit better of a response from one of the local Endocrinology clinics than I’ve received in the past, so we’ll see. I’ll definitely give it another shot in the ER and ICU I volunteer in; and I’m over in San Diego, CA.

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Best of luck! Let me know how it goes!