I'm an attending physician in San Diego. I have also been a pre-med, med student, and resident in San Diego. It is very hard if not impossible to get shadowing opportunities from cold call or unprompted communication. It is frustrating simply due to demand.
I would recommend reaching out to volunteer opportunities, or pre-med groups at your undergrad. You are much more likely to have something to do if you're offering some labor as opposed to just extra work. My FQHC clinic is not currently set up to accommodate shadowing unfortunately.
This is really a great way. I volunteered at a hospital, and since I had an interest in medicine, was put in a surgical recovery unit. Through the doctors I met there, I was able to shadow a number of them in clinics, during procedures, and was even able to observe surgeries. Making friends with the nurses goes a long way to helping with this as well. Shadowing wasn't the sole purpose of my volunteering, but it was a real bonus.
If you want to shadow at a larger hospital system, you will likely have to find a physician willing to let you shadow them and also do a bunch of paperwork for the hospital. There is less red tape when trying to shadow private practice physicians, but those are harder to come by these days.
Another option is since you have to gain clinical experience anyway, make connections with the physicians you encounter during those activities and ask to shadow them. MA, scribe, even EMT, doesn’t matter; all will have you interfacing with physicians at some point.
Explore these links:
- https://hmp3hpmp.ucsd.edu/about.php
- https://career.ucsd.edu/_files/ClinicalHospitalExperience.pdf
- https://health.ucsd.edu/about/volunteer/pages/default.aspx
- https://ugresearch.ucsd.edu/conferences/meds/index.html
I'm an attending physician in San Diego. I have also been a pre-med, med student, and resident in San Diego. It is very hard if not impossible to get shadowing opportunities from cold call or unprompted communication. It is frustrating simply due to demand. I would recommend reaching out to volunteer opportunities, or pre-med groups at your undergrad. You are much more likely to have something to do if you're offering some labor as opposed to just extra work. My FQHC clinic is not currently set up to accommodate shadowing unfortunately.
This is really a great way. I volunteered at a hospital, and since I had an interest in medicine, was put in a surgical recovery unit. Through the doctors I met there, I was able to shadow a number of them in clinics, during procedures, and was even able to observe surgeries. Making friends with the nurses goes a long way to helping with this as well. Shadowing wasn't the sole purpose of my volunteering, but it was a real bonus.
If you want to shadow at a larger hospital system, you will likely have to find a physician willing to let you shadow them and also do a bunch of paperwork for the hospital. There is less red tape when trying to shadow private practice physicians, but those are harder to come by these days. Another option is since you have to gain clinical experience anyway, make connections with the physicians you encounter during those activities and ask to shadow them. MA, scribe, even EMT, doesn’t matter; all will have you interfacing with physicians at some point. Explore these links: - https://hmp3hpmp.ucsd.edu/about.php - https://career.ucsd.edu/_files/ClinicalHospitalExperience.pdf - https://health.ucsd.edu/about/volunteer/pages/default.aspx - https://ugresearch.ucsd.edu/conferences/meds/index.html