godevils2011

Right now I'm at a crossroads...I'm picking out my schedule for my sophomore fall, and if I want to be pre-med, I'll need to take those required courses. But my problem is that I'm not sure yet. To help me decide, I'm planning on volunteering/shadowing at a hospital this summer to see if it's right for me. If I end up not liking it and going a different career path, such as business, will this summer reflect badly on me since I didn't do something related to that field?

isosohungy

I don't think so. I know many people who decide to switch from premed to business or law in the midst of their undergrad studies and they turned out fine; some were even accepted into the country's top law schools!

I'm sure a summer-long experience won't divert your chances of getting a strong resume. It's more important how you spend the time during school than the summer.

Princess'Dad

Don't shadow. It is worthless today after HIPAA.

Do get a job doing aide work or drawing blood. If you don't like it, be honest at law/business application and say you were thinking of medicine and after summer, did not like it. No problem

tenebrousfire

i did cancer research, pediatric office work / shadowing, heart surgery research / shadowing / observation, genetic medicine shadowing... and then dropped premed

my interest shifted from clinical medicine to health business / health policy

and now i will be a management consultant focusing on healthcare

i talked about how my healthcare experiences got me interested in the business and policy side of things, and several companies thought that was good enough...

moreover, to the above, hipaa doesn't make shadowing worthless at all; plenty of shadowing still goes on and is a useful resource to the potential physician

Princess'Dad

Tene
You have the "why" of doing things. It helped you decide what you want to do. I would think you have a great chance of getting in based on your comments.

However, if you read the HIPAA rules, you are not allowed to see patients as you are not involved in their care. All of the hospitals and medical groups I am aware of have outlawed shadowing - unless you are in some formal group such as Medical Explorers.

tenebrousfire

i was an employee of the pediatrician / family doctor's office, and an employee of the university hospital system where the heart surgery / genetics shadowing was done; as such, i was involved in patient care to an extent, and i did considerable hipaa compliance training beforehand

in any case, programs that permit shadowing require hipaa compliance training of their participants:

https://pre-med.usg.iupui.edu/Shadow...8/Default.aspx
Primary Care Physician Shadowing
Shadowing Program ?(Yale Medical Professions Outreach)?

and when a patient-physician interaction (physical exam, etc.) is being observed by a shadow, physicians ask if the patient is all right with the observation first, which constitutes a willing disclosure

perhaps things are different where you live, but shadowing is still alive and well here