Reading Aishat’s amazing blog a couple of weeks ago, “The Untold Story of a Shadow”, made me think. So I decided I would share this with any of you who may be either having trouble finding a physician to shadow or don’t know where to begin.

Now, I realize that my experience may not reflect the potential experience that others may achieve depending on geographic location and so forth, but about a month or so ago I was very worried about being able to find a physician to shadow. I figured MAYBE my family physician (who is a D.O.) might allow me to, but he is affiliated with a major hospital and they sometimes tend to have very strict rules regarding shadowing. But I eventually just said to myself, “Well, you don’t know if you don’t ask”. So the first thing I did was contact an orthopedic surgeon I knew from when I had a rotator cuff injury a couple of year ago (makes me an existing patient, so easier to ask him). Well after 3 weeks of calling (long story short, he is very busy) he finally told the woman I was speaking to to just set it up. Yay! I found a physician to shadow!

Well, I didn’t stop there. I started calling local hospitals to ask if they had any type of shadowing programs. Several said no, but I was finally able to find one that did. NYU Winthrop University Hospital, which is a very good hospital on Long Island. Granted I had to go through an extensive application process and clearances, submit MMR paperwork with titers as well as get an updated PPD test (almost still needed a flu shot as well, which I couldn’t find anywhere because of the season, but fortunately the New York State Board of Health finally declared flu season officially over only last week!). But after all this I have now been accepted into their program and will be shadowing a physician in the Emergency Room. The best part about this? Well:

1) This is not a regular shadowing program where I will stand in the corner out of the way trying to remain silent and inconspicuous watching the physician for hours on end and doing little to nothing. This program is designed for the student to be directly involved with working with the physician. As they put it, you are a liason of sorts, between the physician and the patient. I will have to attend an orientation this coming Saturday with a P.A. to learn how to use the computer system in the ER because I will most likely be dealing with transferring ordered lab tests and results back and forth to the physician, as well as other things. So that, to me, just makes the whole experience so much more awesome and amazing!

2) I also have an interest in Anesthesiology which I had mentioned to the chairman of the Emergency Department who set me up with this program (again only met him over the phone so far) and he said that although Anesthesiology tends to be busy and sometimes it may be hard to get me into the OR, that he may be able to get me to observe a few procedures such as intubations and such, which I enthusiastically thanked him for.

Now, aside from all this, my family physician is also affiliated with the same hospital. I had to see him anyway in order to get the PPD test done, so while I was there I mentioned shadowing to him. He agreed, but said that the process that is required is lengthy. I explained to him that I had already gone through it with this hospital and that I was cleared with them for 1 year. So now I have him to shadow in August as well (I have to leave the month of July open for summer school).

So my point of this whole long statement? Well, I started off trying to figure out how to even find 1 physician to allow me to shadow them, and in the end I wound up with three and potentially 4 physicians to shadow, consisting of 3 M.D’s and one D.O. at one of the best hospitals on Long Island. So if you are worried about how you are going to find someone to shadow, don’t be. Instead just realize that just like everything else we do as pre meds it will require time, work, patience and most of all persistence, but it will pay off in the end. You may even wind up with more than you even expected.

So good luck to everyone in your pre med studies and activities!

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