When would be a good time to start shadowing a professional doctor?

You can start in high school. College is probably the best time.

hi sarah,

i agree with dr campbell that college is probably the best time.

part of the reason is patient confidentiality. partly it's because you simply wouldn't have enough basic medical knowledge to understand what's taking place.

when i was 14 i was a junior hospital volunteer at a pediatric hospital. they stuck me in one of the business offices so i had minimal contact with either patients or medical professionals. so i felt it was mostly a waste.

sometime during high school my mom, a hospital nurse, arranged for me to speak informally with one of the family practice residents at the hospital. it is one of my greatest regrets that i blew my chance to query him on what the journey is like.

early in college i found out about a preceptorship program, i.e.- shadowing a doc for a few weeks during the summer. i looked through the books and found that my own hometown family physician had volunteered for it so i chose him. the office time with him was nothing spectacular. but i still vividly remember the first patient he allowed me to interview on my own and how terrifying that was. i also got to see patients in a rural ER with his father who was a semi-retired physician. i remember the fabulous job he did to manually reduce a thumb fracture. i've had enormous respect for the older docs ever since.

as a junior in college i attended a program for pre-med minorities at the Texas Medical Center. there we followed the various services on their hospital rounds. saw lots of ill patients and anxious young residents. this was also the first time i realized that these people didn't have all the answers. at this time i did ask the residents lots of questions about their career choice. every one of them tried to dissuade me from choosing medicine. to this day i'm still not sure if they did that truthfully or to test my resolve.

i would strongly suggest that when you get to college you speak to your health professions counselor about such opportunities.

as far as starting in high school. i think that you probably should do some information interviews with a few physicians. mostly gathering info on their own journeys. if one of them takes a liking to you then they might offer to let you shadow them. but it's probably a longshot.

as far as gathering references i would target your science teachers. they'll be most invested in seeing you succeed.

btw, i'm a family physician. and everything i'm telling you is with the assumption that you'd have as much patient contact as me. however, there are several specialties where patient contact is minimal, such as Radiology, Hematology, and Anesthesiology. those medical professionals would likely be much more willing to have you around that primary care physicians.

good luck!