Pre-Health Students: Experience in the field

For students interested in pursuing healthcare fields, such as becoming doctors, dentists, pharmacists, physician assistants, and etc, usually you will not find internships advertised online (very rarely are they posted online). Also, a different lingo is used when talking about gaining experience in the healthcare field. Instead of using the word internship, experience in the healthcare field is typically referred to as “shadowing” or “observing.” So now, you may be wondering, how do I find doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc to shadow/observe if they don’t post openings online?

What you will have to do is contact doctors and dentists through email or phone calls and personally ask them if you can come and shadow/observe them at their clinic or hospital. A good place to start would be your own doctor, dentist, etc that you typically see in addition to any family members, neighbors, and close friends of your parents in that field. If they refuse, then you can use Google Maps to your advantage. Find doctors, pharmacists, etc near where you live and keep calling and sending emails to them until someone says yes and allows you to gain experience at their hospital or clinic. Some colleges also have health centers on campus and you should ask the doctors, pharmacists, etc over there as well.

Another thing I would like to point out is that for students trying to enter healthcare professions requiring graduate school training, you are REQUIRED to have experience in the field. Medical, dental, pharmacy, and other healthcare graduate schools look for experience in the field before admitting students in their programs, so make sure you sign up for this exposure to the field as early as possible in your college career. Sometimes, these graduate schools may even have requirements for how many hours you should shadow a doctor or pharmacist, which can be upwards of 100 hours or more. Hence, it is best to get started early on to make sure you have enough time to explore your field of interest and acquire enough hours to satisfy the graduate school requirements.

Gaining this experience will also let you decide earlier on if you want to be a doctor, pharmacist, etc. Some students may start out with a desire to become a surgeon, but after shadowing during freshman year, if they feel that they don’t like dealing with blood and/or life/death situations, then becoming a surgeon may not be the best idea for that student. Hence, they have time to explore other fields before locking themselves into a healthcare field for three years and then realizing in their junior/senior that they don’t want to go into healthcare because they start shadowing late in the game.