shadowing

[oceanside]

What is the common way to go about asking a doctor to be shadowed? Do you call them at their office? Do you shadow them at their office or at hospitals on rounds? Is it better to shadow under as many different specialties as I can for a broader scope, or is it better to just shadow under a few doctors for a more in depth learning of a few specialties? How many hours/days/week do you shadow - to show desire to learn without becoming a nuisance(hopefully)? I am 35 and am a little intimidated about asking somone to follow them around.

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[QofQuimica]

What is the common way to go about asking a doctor to be shadowed? Do you call them at their office? Do you shadow them at their office or at hospitals on rounds? Is it better to shadow under as many different specialties as I can for a broader scope, or is it better to just shadow under a few doctors for a more in depth learning of a few specialties? How many hours/days/week do you shadow - to show desire to learn without becoming a nuisance(hopefully)? I am 35 and am a little intimidated about asking somone to follow them around.

Do you have any idea about what area of medicine interests you? If you do, ask your family doctor to give you a name of someone s/he knows who practices in that specialty. Or, if you want to be a GP, you can just shadow your family doctor. You can shadow doctors in any of those places that you mentioned. In my case, I have a med school at my university, so I just looked on their website and emailed a guy who seemed interesting. He was very amenable to my shadowing him, and we might even do a research project together next year. I think most doctors, especially those who are affiliated with universities, are used to students shadowing them and they will not see anything weird in you contacting them and asking to do this.

 

[Sundarban1]

Do you have any idea about what area of medicine interests you? If you do, ask your family doctor to give you a name of someone s/he knows who practices in that specialty. Or, if you want to be a GP, you can just shadow your family doctor. You can shadow doctors in any of those places that you mentioned. In my case, I have a med school at my university, so I just looked on their website and emailed a guy who seemed interesting. He was very amenable to my shadowing him, and we might even do a research project together next year. I think most doctors, especially those who are affiliated with universities, are used to students shadowing them and they will not see anything weird in you contacting them and asking to do this.

There was a thread about shadowing in the pre-allopathic forum, I advise doing a search for this thread because it had good information from other who were looking to shadow also. Most people who do not work in the medical area or know a doctor run into problems with HIPAA (patient privacy) which has been enforced over the past year or so. Therefore, it may be futile to simply call doctors randomly to ask to shadow.
Good luck!

 

[BSChemE]

There was a thread about shadowing in the pre-allopathic forum, I advise doing a search for this thread because it had good information from other who were looking to shadow also. Most people who do not work in the medical area or know a doctor run into problems with HIPAA (patient privacy) which has been enforced over the past year or so. Therefore, it may be futile to simply call doctors randomly to ask to shadow.
Good luck!

Sundarban1 is right. HIPAA changed everything. There was an actual shadowing program at a local hospital near where I live where you had the opportunity to shadow different doctors in different specialties. You could actually observe the doctors while they saw patients. I was interested in applying and found out they ended the program.

There are several threads out there where people have asked how to shadow doctors.

The thread that helped me was entitled "How to Shadow a Doc."

 

[jules0328]

You should contact a medical college in your area and see if they can help you out. maybe even go on to the faculty e mail addresses and e mail a whole bunch of people who may be able to help you out. I too, was intimidated and felt pretty stupid asking so i e mailed. I start shadowing on Monday. Good Luck