Is it necessary to expose yourself to suffering patients, tired and long work hours, positive and bad news before you decide to do medicine? We think yes! The idea of medicine is very different from the reality of it. The healing power of a physician is amazing. However, in reality, it is gruesome hard work and an extensive thought process that gives a physician the power to heal.

Shadowing a doctor or getting any sort of clinical exposure through a program will be very important for your future medical career. Getting that clinical experience early is important for your career for multiple reasons.

 1.     It is important so that you can decide whether you want to do medicine in the first place. What if you hate it? That is okay! Medicine is not for everyone and if you realize early on that it is not for you, you give yourself the opportunity to change directions. If you are still interested in medicine but do not like working with patients, you have the option, among other things, to do clinical research. With clinical research you can still move medicine/science forward without the typical clinical interaction.

2.     Shadowing helps you figure out what you like in medicine- maybe even help you decide what type of doctor you want to be. It is a common misconception that you need to know what type of doctor you want to be before shadowing and applying to medical school. That is not true! You can contact any doctor and ask to shadow them! Start somewhere and move around until you find what you like. I shadowed a cardiologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, and neurosurgeon before I decided neurosurgery was for me! If you have absolutely no idea what you want to do, google “medical summer programs”! These programs can range from one to eight weeks and can provide you with a clinical “boot camp” at the undergraduate level. It is a great way to get exposed to all types of medical specialties early on.

3.     Getting early clinical experiences will build your communication skills and confidence working with patients. If you have read the other blog posts you know how much we stress the importance of communication skills in medicine. Putting yourself in a professional setting where you have to talk to patients and communicate appropriately with the medical team is important for your professional development. Additionally, there is a lot of medical jargon out there. The sooner you familiarize yourself with it the more confident you will feel working with the medical team and the more useful you will be to a team.

I hope I was able to convince you to start shadowing! And do not worry, we are not abandoning you just yet. We want to help you get in contact with a physician, so that you can start shadowing now! Unless you know a physician personally, the best way to start shadowing is to look up a specialty you are interested in and look at the physicians in your area. We recommend emailing around three physicians at first. Give them a week to respond and if they do not respond try a follow up email. If still no response, pick another three or try calling their office- if you are really interested in shadowing that specific physician. Below is a template that you may use to email physicians that you want to shadow! Good luck!

Hello Dr.(X),

I hope this message finds you well.

My name is (X) and I am in my (X) year of (undergrad/medical school) at (X) school. I have an interest in (X) and was contacting you to see if you could give me the opportunity to see what it is like as a (neurosurgeon/cardiologist/radiologist etc.). Please let me know if you would be willing and able to let me shadow you. Thank you in advance for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

(X)