<p>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?</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Don’t shadow. It is worthless today after HIPAA.</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>i did cancer research, pediatric office work / shadowing, heart surgery research / shadowing / observation, genetic medicine shadowing… and then dropped premed</p>
<p>my interest shifted from clinical medicine to health business / health policy</p>
<p>and now i will be a management consultant focusing on healthcare</p>
<p>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…</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>in any case, programs that permit shadowing require hipaa compliance training of their participants:</p>
<p><a href=“https://pre-med.usg.iupui.edu/ShadowingProgram/tabid/1668/Default.aspx[/url]”>https://pre-med.usg.iupui.edu/ShadowingProgram/tabid/1668/Default.aspx</a>
[Primary</a> Care Physician Shadowing](<a href=“http://www.ecu.edu/generalistprograms/pcshadow.htm]Primary”>http://www.ecu.edu/generalistprograms/pcshadow.htm)
[Shadowing</a> Program ?(Yale Medical Professions Outreach)?](<a href=“http://sites.google.com/site/yalemedicalprofessionsoutreach/shadowing]Shadowing”>http://sites.google.com/site/yalemedicalprofessionsoutreach/shadowing)</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>perhaps things are different where you live, but shadowing is still alive and well here</p>