Shadowing Opportunities

  1. Office & Department Directory
  2. Biology Department
  3. Shadowing Opportunities

The Importance of Shadowing

It is essential to spend time following health care professionals of your anticipated field. This will inform your desire to pursue a particular field, and recognize what is needed to be successful as a health professional. While it is beneficial to spend time with one health professional, this is one of the few instances where breadth can be as valuable as depth. Every health professional has a different approach and relationship with their patients. It’s valuable to see more than one example.

Remember to record your thoughts and key experiences in a journal. Reflect on how you see yourself fitting into this health profession, things you saw that you liked, and things that bothered you. These reflections and examples will be an invaluable tool to support your application essays and rationale for choosing a particular health profession.

Arranging Shadowing Opportunities

More and more health care professionals are part of hospital systems with established procedures to protect patients and students. Be sure to complete applications 1-2 months in advance of your anticipated start date. Use your mid-semester breaks well!!

  1. Start by asking your own health care professionals, or those of your family and friends, if you can follow them for one day.
  2. Utilize the SLU alumni network. Use LinkedIn and Handshake and discuss strategies with Career Services to find providers in your area to shadow when you’re home over breaks.
  3. While you are at SLU, both St. Lawrence Health and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center accept career shadows. 
  • For St. Lawrence Health System, email Jane Kring MD at jkring@stlawu.edu to express your interest, including the health professionals you’re most interested in shadowing, any particular interests you have, when you’re available and how far you’re willing/able to travel for shadowing.  Dr. Kring will email you a link to the application, and the health requirements which will need to be submitted to employeehealth@cphospital.org.  Once your application is submitted, you’ll be added to the learning management system and can begin training to become credentialed.  Once you have completed all the requirements, please let Dr. Kring know.  If after becoming fully credentialed, if you don’t hear anything from our contact person (Ms. Abbie Cole) for 2 weeks, please contact Dr. Kring to follow up. 
  • For Claxton Hepburn Medical Center, contact Cheryl Smith at csmith@chmed.org about their 3-day shadowship. Be prepared to prove you have a flu shot if it’s flu season. You’ll also be required to sign a confidentiality pledge, health statement, and job description. Since the screening process is abbreviated, you are unlikely to shadow in the OR, ER, or mental health unit, but multiple other inpatient and outpatient sites are available.
  1. The Northern Area Health Education Center office in Canton is able to help you locate job shadowing and internship connections in the area and beyond. Visit https://northernahec.org/rural-health-exploration-program/ and fill out the Job Shadow Interest Form or call the Northern AHEC office at (315) 379-7701.
  2. The Rusk Health Career Opportunity Program (HCOP) https://med.nyu.edu/rusk/educationtraining/health-careers/about-rusk-hea... provides un-paid summer shadowing opportunities for students in a wide range of areas (emergency medicine, nutrition, PT, PA, etc.) at the NYU School of Medicine. You must apply for this program; typically the deadline is in early January for the upcoming summer.
  3. The Summer Health Professions Education Program is available at several medical and dental schools throughout the US.  Information, the application (opens November 1st for freshmen and sophomores) and eligibility requirements are available on their website (https://www.shpep.org/).  If you plan to apply to participate in this free program, be sure to talk with Career Services about funding opportunities.
  4. If you’re interested in veterinary science there are a several opportunities to gain animal experience:
  • Email Ashlee Downing at adowning@stlawu.edu , who works in Student Activities and Leadership about opportunities to volunteer at Bittersweet Farms.
  • Email Liz MacDougall at emacdougall@stlawu.edu, who runs the Vivarium on campus.  Students can work in the Vivarium caring for the animals, and Liz can connect you with large or small animal veterinarians for shadowing. 
  1. If you’re interested in dentistry, there are several options to secure shadowing.
  • Start by asking your own dental providers to shadow for 1 day.
  • Both Career Services and NAHEC (#4 above) can help you locate dentists to shadow in the Canton area or in your home town.
  • Dr. Hosmer, a general dentist in Ogdensburg, is also open to hosting students.  Please set up a meeting with Jane Kring MD by email jkring@stlawu.edu to discuss this possibility.
  • Lee Akin, DDS works through Canton Potsdam Hospital; please complete the steps for St. Lawrence Health (#3 above) to potentially arrange shadowing opportunities with Dr. Akin.
     

For More Individualized Advice

There are many different types of experiential opportunities that you can engage in while a student on- or off-campus. The options above are certainly not the only ones available to you. For more information and advice about shadowing/experiential activities, please make an appointment with a Health Professions Advisor and/or Career Services.