Personal Narrative: My First Shadowing Experience

Training for residency in a busy inner city hospital in Newark, which caters to the less privileged and ever growing uninsured population of New Jersey had its own advantages, as there was always a large population of patients admitted as inpatients in addition to outpatient services. I was also fortunate to have strong and dedicated mentors who simultaneously exuded compassion and confidence, and taught me to appreciate the beauty of medicine. During our cardiology service months, we had the opportunity to attend many cardiology didactic lectures and conferences. We were also trained to read EKGs, stress tests, and to interpret echocardiography basics. In addition we had the chance to witness numerous cardiac catheterizations, angioplasties, and transesophageal echocardiograms. During my close interaction with cardiology team, I loved the personalities of the cardiology fellows and attendings who mentored me. They seemed brilliant, energetic and vibrant, and there discussion and debate on rounds was always challenging and thought

I shadowed Dr. Martin Skie at the University of Toledo Medical Center when I started contemplating a career as a physician. He is an orthopedic surgeon and I had the privilege to shadow during several surgeries, and throughout clinical rotations. I spent over fifty hours shadowing him over the course of a month. I also had the opportunity to shadow Dr. Zachary Ginsberg, an intensivist, in Kettering Medical Center’s intensive care unit. I was able to discuss the patients, their conditions, the lab results, imaging studies, medications, procedures, and the science behind the thought process while shadowing for over one hundred hours over several months. Both opportunities provided insight into different specialties and sparked my interest.Since

During my observation, I followed the patient from her preparation of surgery, into the operating room, to recovery. I gain insight on what happens during surgeries from nurses, surgeons, and other hospital staff. This experience was much different than any other clinical I have gone to. After having first-hand experience, I now know that surgery is nothing like what is portrayed on television.

Shadowing physicians with drastically different doctoring styles and personalities helped me understand more than just the daily workload but also which doctoring style I prefer. I also learned that physicians need to work as a team with other physicians, nurses, medical staff and patients. I glimpsed at their busy schedules and found that physicians worked in the wards and in the clinic, took on-call duties every other weekend, filed their own billing and charting, covered each other, while still making time for their families. Being exposed to this has helped solidify my aspirations to one day become an effective and balanced physician. I aspire to be a physician who remembers the details, takes time to discuss treatment, and has a broad

I have shadowed two physicians during my pre-medical years. These experiences have significantly shaped the type of physician I want to be in the future. Not in the sense of a medical specialty, but rather in the sense of demonstrating a clear compassion and understanding for my patients.

I really enjoyed my activities this week. Shadowing my Task Supervisor during a therapeutic home visit was interesting. I loved her interaction with the foster family. She took the time out to interview each child and properly observe the children in their home setting. She also addressed any concerns or questions that the Foster Parents had.

Having the opportunity to shadowing in primary care practices was most profound to my introduction of the practice of clinical medicine. It was through observing patient interactions centered upon the diagnosis and treatment of common medical conditions that I was able utilize medical information I had learned as an undergraduate to the actual application of practicing medicine. For instance, information about diabetes mellitus learned from my anatomy and physiology course was transformed into the physically diagnosis, treatment, and long-term management of the chronic condition in medical settings. Thus, shadowing in such a practice truly brought medicine to life for me. Likewise, while shadowing, I had the opportunity to listen to patients

For my shadowing day I shadowed Mr. Jay, who works for Big Red Rooster company, however I spent the majority of my time with three of his coworkers. The first part of my day I spent with Mason Miller, a graphic designer, then to Sarah Mape, and environmental designer, and I ended with Brady Schneider, an architect. From talking to the three of them I learned that there is really no typical day at work. Any problem could come up at any moment and one should be ready to tackle the task immediately, however most days are not like that. When work is not time threatening or difficult, day can be more relaxed and chill. The backgrounds from those who work there varied. The designers found themselves in more artistic classes when they were given

I hope to gain more hands-on clinical experience by examining and preparing patients before surgery and monitoring them throughout the recovery process. Some of members of my lab are physician-scientists, and I have shadowed them when they see patients at the hospital. Since all of the physicians I previously shadowed were specialists, I have reached out to a family doctor. I will be shadowing him on weekends in the coming months so I can gain a better understanding of what being a primary care provider entails.

When arranging my shadow experience, I looked to my supervisor for information regarding who to contact on the outreach team. I was given the name of an Occupational Therapist who could accommodate my learning experience, in which I emailed to set up an appropriate time upon approval from their manager. Due to time constraints, I was given the opportunity to do two home visits in the morning with clients that had been on the seventh-floor as inpatients. This was chosen to give me the experience of transition from the hospital to their home and the gaps within the system. Before going on my shadow experience, I made sure to get best practices and the job description of the individual being shadow’s job to help assist pre-job shadow time. The

The reason I choose this job shadow, was some family friends work there and it has always interested me. This is like a teaching job, but they focus on difficult classes that many parents can’t teach at home. HERO is a program that is for homeschooled children. So when I job shadowed it was near the end of their year getting grades put in and reviewing for tests. I think what was the most surprising is how similar to highschool it was. I have always gone to public school so I wasn't sure how different being homeschooled was, but in this program it is very similar. I think that if someday I ever decided to homeschool my children that this would definitely be an option for me, the way that they really get to interact with the children they teach

It was my first time on a big case and during the 12 hours of the operation, my mind and body were stretched to their limits. I found myself mesmerized by the precision with which the attending maneuvered. I wanted to be as good as them or even better. When I came to the United States, I worked under a senior surgeon who told me, “Most surgeries are not difficult, once you know what you are doing. What’s difficult is performing a long surgery, and then waking up in the middle of the night to see if the patient is doing all right.”

I have numerous experiences volunteering at the hospital, interning for an RN and a Vice President for Human Resources, which have all led to my interest of this particular program. Based on my experiences, I was able to view both sides of the medical field, both the administrative and the clinical side. I had an experience that stands out of the rest, it was during my clinical internship at Mount Sinai Hospital for Kristen McEvitt, an RN, who introduced me to the various professions that the medical field has to offer. She introduced me to Dr. Schmidt, who is a breast surgeon for the Dubin Breast Cancer Center. I was given the chance to observe various surgeries such as mastectomy, partial mastectomy, and lumpectomy and more. I was able to observe these procedures

This was the opportunity of a lifetime. I got to see through my own eyes what a surgeon did on a daily basis. He specialized in weight loss surgery, and his job really appealed to me. Every time I went to go shadowed him, I became full of energy because his job was so interesting and made me want to jump into his shoes as soon as I can, so I decided to focus becoming a weight loss surgeon. I saw a lot of the doctor’s patients over the summer and saw how weight loss surgery affected his patients. I saw the befores and afters for a lot of his patients and made me feel inspired to help these people like what the doctor is doing for his patients. Seeing the weight change in all of the patients during my summer experience really showed me how beneficial weight loss surgery is and how effective it can be for patients. Weight loss surgery is a safe method to aid severely overweight people in fighting

Through the last year and a half I have had the privilege of shadowing a variety of optometrists. My very first shadowing experience was at Vision One in Boise, Idaho. I shadowed Dr. Fronk and Dr. Bodily and left not sure if I was taking my education in the right direction. Determined to see if this occupation was for me I found another office to shadow. After shadowing at Eastgate Optical I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Dr. Winbigler at Eastgate Optical talked to me about what inspired me to choose the path of optometry. I told him about my experiences with my father and the surgeries he had gone through. He then showed me certain things through a slit-lamp and described what I was looking at. His eagerness to