Shadowing

Part of Building the Foundation. Shadowing is the one requirement on this list that runs entirely on someone saying yes to you, which is why students without a physician in the family assume it is closed to them. It is not. The ask is much smaller than it feels, and this page contains the actual email.

The short version

Shadowing is observation. You follow a physician, you watch, you don't touch anything. It is entered separately from clinical experience, and schools read both.1

The difficulty is social, not logistical. You have to ask a stranger for a favor, and if nobody in your family has ever done that in a professional setting, it feels enormous. From the physician's side it is a small request that they have received before and usually say yes to. The rest of this page is about closing that gap.

First: do you need a connection?

No, and the belief that you do is the main thing keeping students out.

Cold outreach is a normal way to arrange shadowing. Physicians in primary care, in community clinics, and at teaching hospitals get asked by students with no introduction several times a year. Some say no, mostly for scheduling reasons. Enough say yes.

What's actually in your way is friction: the email that never gets sent, the voicemail that never gets left, two rejections read as a verdict. Handle the friction and most of the problem goes with it.

Before you pick a name, it is worth knowing what is out there. Most students arrange shadowing with whoever they can reach, which is usually a family-medicine or internal-medicine clinic, and that is a good place to start. It is not the whole of medicine. The Sky has a profile for every specialty, and an hour in it will give you better questions to ask and a better reason to give when you write.

The email

This is the whole thing. Fill in your own details, send it, and stop redrafting it.

The whole ask

This is the entire email. Send it to five practices.

Subject Request to shadow — undergraduate student, [Your University]

Dear Dr. [Last name],

My name is [Name] and I'm a [second]-year student at [University], studying [major] and planning to apply to medical school. I found your practice through [a search for family medicine in Springfield].

I'm hoping to spend a day or two observing you, if you allow students to shadow. I'm interested in family medicine specifically because I want to understand how one doctor manages a patient's whole picture over years, rather than a single problem once.

I can be available any weekday, and I'm happy to work around whatever is convenient. I'm also glad to complete any paperwork, background check, or health screening your practice requires.

Thank you for your time.

[Name] · [Phone] · [University], class of [year]

Bottom line

Under two hundred words, one real reason, a small ask, wide availability. That is the whole technique.

Five things make it work, and once you can name them you can rebuild it for any recipient.

One specific reason you chose them. Not flattery. A real sentence about why this specialty or this practice. It is the difference between a form letter and a person.

A small ask. A day or two. Small asks get said yes to, and they grow on their own once you're in the building.

Wide availability. "Any weekday" removes the scheduling negotiation that kills most of these threads.

Offering to handle the paperwork before they mention it. Many practices and hospitals require an observer agreement, a confidentiality form, and sometimes health screening. Saying you'll do it signals you know this is real.

Short. Under two hundred words. A physician is reading it between patients.

Send it to five practices, not one. Follow up once, a week later, in the same thread, with two sentences. Then move on to the next five.

Who to send it to

In rough order of how likely you are to get a yes:

  • Your own doctor, and your family's doctors. You already have a relationship and they already know you.
  • Primary care practices near you, meaning family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics. These are the easiest yeses and the ones schools most want you to have seen.
  • Community health centers and free clinics. They are used to students, they're mission-driven, and they will often take you when a private practice won't.
  • Professors, including the ones who don't teach medicine. Faculty know clinicians and are used to being asked to make an introduction. This is the single most under-used route on campus.
  • Your pre-health advising office and any hospital affiliated with your school, both of which sometimes run a formal observer program with a set application.
  • Alumni from your high school or university who went into medicine. Your school's alumni office or LinkedIn will find them, and a shared school is a real reason for a stranger to answer.

You'll see hour targets quoted for shadowing. There is no published requirement behind any of them, and Clinical Experience covers why the invented numbers distort every decision you make next. What's worth keeping from that advice is the shape rather than the count: seeing two kinds of medicine tells you more than seeing one kind for twice as long, and one of them should be primary care, because that's where most of American medicine actually happens.

If you are considering DO schools, shadow a DO

This is the one concrete shadowing requirement that actually exists, and the pages that quote invented hour targets usually leave it out. Many osteopathic schools expect or strongly prefer a letter of recommendation from a DO, and some ask specifically about osteopathic shadowing. Since GPA Strategy & Recovery makes the case that DO programs are a real path rather than a fallback, this is worth acting on early: find a DO in your area and get a day, because the letter that comes out of it is much easier to ask for after you have spent time in someone's clinic. Check the specific schools you're considering, because the requirement is written differently at each.

If you cannot physically get there

Three real constraints stop students who have already gotten a yes: no car, no daytime hours, no money for what shadowing quietly costs.

No transport. Ask for the site on a bus line, since most groups have several. Ask whether a hospital-based clinic day exists, because hospitals sit on transit far more often than suburban offices do. And a campus student health center is a working clinic with physicians in it, is within walking distance by definition, and is routinely overlooked.

No daytime hours. Clinic runs when you work, and a weekday off is a lost day's pay, not a scheduling favor. Two things help. Ask the physician about a single full day, because trading one shift is a much easier conversation with your own manager than restructuring your week, and it costs you one day of wages rather than eight. And ask about settings that run outside business hours: urgent care, emergency departments, and hospitalists all work evenings and weekends. If you do need time from your employer, ask plainly and early: "I have a commitment for a medical school application on the 14th, can I trade that shift?" That's accurate, it's specific, and it's the version a scheduler can act on.

The cost of dressing the part. Business casual and closed-toe shoes are the standard expectation, and if you don't own that, it is a real expense at exactly the wrong moment. A pair of plain dark trousers and one clean button-down covers every shadowing day you'll ever do. Thrift it. Some campus career centers run a free professional clothing closet, and most students don't know theirs exists. Ask. Nobody in that clinic is grading your clothes, they're noticing whether you turned up looking like you took it seriously.

Virtual shadowing exists, as a supplement rather than a substitute. The AAMC's own guidance treats it as something that can add to your understanding while still expecting in-person exposure where it is possible.2 If you're rural, carless, or working full time, a virtual program is a legitimate way to see specialties you couldn't otherwise reach. Don't let it be the only thing you have.

While you are in the room

Arrive early. Introduce yourself to the front desk and the nurses, who run the place and will decide how your day goes. Stand where you are put. Say nothing during patient encounters unless spoken to.

Watch the parts that aren't the medicine. How they open a conversation. What they do when a patient doesn't understand. How they behave in the ninety seconds between rooms, when nobody is performing. That is the material you'll still remember in three years, and it is what makes a personal statement specific instead of general.

Write two or three sentences down after you leave, never in front of patients. Send a thank-you email the same day. If it went well, ask at the end whether you can come back, because the second day is a much smaller ask than the first was.

What belongs to other pages

Being part of patient care rather than watching it is Clinical Experience, and the two are separate entries on the application. Turning a shadowing moment into an essay is The Personal Statement. Finding people who will advise you over years is Finding Mentors & Support, which is a different relationship and a more valuable one.

Common mistakes

  • Waiting for a connection instead of sending five cold emails.
  • Asking for too much. A semester-long commitment is a hard yes. Two days is an easy one.
  • Reading two rejections as a verdict. Most are calendar problems.
  • Only seeing one specialty, which teaches you less than the same hours split across two.
  • Confusing shadowing with clinical experience. Schools want both, entered separately.
  • Not writing anything down, then having nothing specific to say about it two years later.

Where this fits on the Road

Shadowing tells you what the job looks like. Clinical Experience is where you find out what it feels like to be inside it, and the two answer different questions. If shadowing leaves you less certain, that is useful information, and Is Medicine the Right Path? is written for exactly that.

References

Observer requirements, health screening, and paperwork are set by each practice or health system and vary. Confirm what a site requires before your first day. Last reviewed: 2026-08-02

Footnotes

  1. Shadowing is entered separately from clinical experience on the application, and neither the AAMC nor individual schools publish a required number of hours. AMCAS Work and Activities experience types. https://students-residents.aamc.org/how-apply-medical-school-amcas/section-5-amcas-application-work-and-activities ↩

  2. AAMC, Virtual Shadowing — Tips From a Current Medical Student and Physician, which frames virtual shadowing as a complement to in-person exposure. https://students-residents.aamc.org/getting-organized/virtual-shadowing-tips-current-medical-student-and-physician ↩