Every premed shadows before medical school, but not everyone does it right.

The goal of this guide is to help you find a doctor to shadow in any specialty of your choice.

What is the point of shadowing? 

There are some misconceptions around shadowing. Shadowing is NOT going to:

• Significantly change your application

• Impress any person reading your application

• More shadowing hours will make you a better applicant

Shadowing is an important “checkbox activity” that serves one purpose for admission committees. It makes sure you know what it looks like to be a doctor.

No med school wants to accept someone who will drop out because they didn’t know what it looks like to be a doctor. Shadowing is their insurance policy.

Is all shadowing created equal?

Honestly, yeah. No one is going to be impressed if you shadow a top notch neurosurgeon at the Cleveland Clinic vs a family medicine doctor in small town Iowa. At the end of the day, shadowing is about the lessons that you learn, not the caliber of the doctor.

This means it is not worth spending time pursuing “prestigious” shadowing opportunities.

Which specialties should I shadow?

It is best to shadow 2-3 different specialties. A good rule of thumb is to shadow:

• 1 medical doctor (pediatrics/internal medicine/family medicine)

  • These experiences help show what management of chronic conditions looks like

• 1 surgical doctor (general surgery, orthopedic surgery, etc.)

  • Surgical exposure will complement your primary care experience by introducing you to how surgeries are done, what happens in an operation room, and how doctors help patients get better after surgery.

Most students will gravitate to one, both, or neither. If it is neither, think about why.

Keep in mind that typically when you see something for the first few times, you stuck in between 2 biases:

• Novelty bias: Cutting someone’s head open will be shocking the first few times. But, will it be as enjoyable on the 500th when you are on 3 hours of sleep?

• Stupidity bias: When you don’t understand something, it is less interesting. The more time you spend on a particular problem/situation, the deeper your understanding becomes. This is what often turns into fascination.

You don’t want to be too quick to rule out experiences based on instincts.

How many hours should I shadow?

Spending 20 hours per speciality is more than enough and anything more than 100 hours of total shadowing is pretty useless. 

Remember that you don’t have any medical knowledge, so you aren’t learning anything other than what it’s like to be a doctor.

Admission committees truly do not care how much you shadow. In fact, spending 1,000 hours shadowing may reflect poorly. They may wonder why did you not transition to an activity where you are more involved.

How to find a doctor to shadow?

Now that we are all on the same page, let’s discuss how to find a doctor to shadow.

Since “who” you shadow doesn’t matter, the first step is to reach out to family friends/doctors you know. This can often be your own primary care physician or anyone else you have interacted with. They have a much higher likelihood of saying yes.

If you don’t know any doctors, then it’s time to turn to Google.

Finding doctors on Google

There are generally 2 types of shadowing: private and academic. 

Private shadowing may be a small private clinic. This might be easier to get as these physicians don’t have tons of people reaching out to them.

On the other hand, academic shadowing may involve assistance from a department coordinator.

The type of experience you are going for will change how you should reach out to them.

Private doctor shadowing

Finding private doctor’s email addresses is nearly impossible. Therefore there are 2 ways to best reach out to these doctors:

1. Phone call

2. Show up at their door

I know it sounds crazy but this is by far the best way. Both of these options humanize you. Most doctors want to help you, but they need to see and/or hear you.

Phone Call

I know cold phone calls are no fun, so I want to make this as easy as possible for you.

If you find a phone number for a doctor’s office on google, then it will likely go to the front desk person.

This is an easy script for you to use when you call them.

Your goal with your first sentence is to make sure you have something in common with the person. If you are trying to shadow in your home town instead of where your undergrad is, mention your high school in the first sentence.

You need to have something in common otherwise they will hang up on you.

Show up in person

This is by far the easiest way to get shadowing because so few people do it. But, it works like a charm.

Btw: If it helps, just know that when you become a med student, you will often be told a name and you are expected to figure out where and when to show up. Think of this as practice :)

You can use the phone script from above and it will work nearly instantly.

Academic doctor shadowing

Emails of doctors in academia are easily available online. Like I mentioned above, most doctors want to help you. Therefore, all you need is a clear ask.

Here is a template you can use for these doctors.

Heads up that many of these doctors may have some department coordinator that sets up their shadowing. You can even mention them in an email like this one:

Sometimes, showing that you understand how these things work within your email makes it more likely for them to forward it to an assistant/coordinator.

Other options

If you have tried emailing and calling doctors and are still struggling to get shadowing, here are a few more avenues that you can go down:

• Check with your premed advisor/office for connections and resources. There may be university-affiliated doctors that would be good to shadow.

• Ask your classmates who they have shadowed and try reaching out to that same doctor. No need to reinvent the wheel. No med school cares if all students shadow the same doctor.

Future emails topics I am working on:

• how to leave a lasting impression when shadowing?

• where to talk about shadowing in your med school application?

What other topics/questions do you have about shadowing?

Best,

CKR