Questions to Ask When Shadowing a Doctor
For premed students working out what questions to ask a physician during a day of shadowing, and for anyone else still in school who has a doctor's permission to stand in the room. They cover how the day is actually structured, how decisions get made and shared, what training and debt cost, what the work takes from the people who do it, and what a student can usefully do next.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
How did you pick this specialty, and what were you deciding between?
Why ask it
The alternatives they rejected say more than the choice they made, and the reasons are often practical: hours, training length, the kind of patient contact they wanted. It shows how specialty decisions are really made rather than how they are described in application essays.
What did you do this morning before I got here?
Why ask it
Handover, chart review, imaging results and messages from overnight usually happen before the first scheduled contact. Students who only see the middle of the day come away with a distorted picture of the work.
What should I do and not do while I am standing in the corner today?
Why ask it
Asking first prevents the awkward moments: where to stand during an examination, when to leave, whether to introduce yourself. It also signals that you understand patients did not come here for your education.
How many patients will you see today, and how long does each one get?
Why ask it
The time per patient governs everything: how much history can be taken, how much explanation is possible, what gets deferred. It is the single number that most defines a specialty's daily experience.
How much of your day is with patients and how much is at a computer?
Why ask it
Documentation, orders, messages and prior authorization take a large share of clinical time, and it is the most common complaint among practicing physicians. Ask whether that work happens during the day or after it.
Who else decides what happens to a patient besides you?
Why ask it
Nurses, pharmacists, therapists, consultants and insurers all shape care, and the physician's authority is more shared than students expect. Watching that play out is one of the most useful things a shadowing day offers.
What do you do when you are not sure what is wrong?
Why ask it
Uncertainty is the normal state, and how they handle it, watchful waiting, another test, a phone call to a colleague, admitting it to the patient, is the actual skill of clinical medicine. Confident-sounding answers to easy cases teach you nothing.
How do you tell someone news they were not expecting?
Why ask it
This is a learned, structured skill rather than a matter of natural warmth, and most physicians can describe how their approach changed over time. If you get to see it, that will be the part of the day you remember.
What does a bad day here look like?
Why ask it
Answers vary from an overrunning clinic to a death, and the difference tells you what this specialty carries. It also gives them permission to be honest rather than to recruit you.
How do you keep the last patient out of your head with the next one?
Why ask it
Consultation after consultation with no gap for processing is a defining feature of clinical work. Whatever they describe, a routine, a short walk, or nothing at all, is worth knowing before you commit a decade to training.
Which part of training was harder than people warned you about?
Why ask it
The difficult parts are often not the exams: they are the moves, the call schedule, the loss of control over where you live and who you see. Those are the costs that surprise people who prepared only academically.
How do you decide what to read and what to ignore?
Why ask it
Nobody keeps up with everything, so the practical answer is a filter: a journal, a summary service, a colleague who reads. That filter is a more realistic picture of lifelong learning than the phrase suggests.
What happens after a mistake, practically, in this system?
Why ask it
Reporting, review, disclosure and the personal aftermath all follow a process, and how frankly they describe it reveals the culture of the place. Reluctance to discuss it is itself informative.
How much control do you have over your own schedule?
Why ask it
Clinic templates, call schedules and on-call frequency differ enormously between specialties and employers, and they determine the rest of your life. Ask about weekends and nights specifically.
What does the money look like against the debt, honestly?
Why ask it
Training years are long and low-paid, and repayment can extend well into a career. Most physicians will give a straight answer to a student who asks plainly, and it is better heard now than after matriculation.
What do people misunderstand about your specialty?
Why ask it
Every field has a public image that is partly wrong, whether about the pace, the glamour or the amount of patient contact. Correcting it early stops you choosing a specialty you have imagined rather than seen.
Where does the work go home with you?
Why ask it
Some carry the notes, some carry the phone, some carry a specific patient for years. Asking where it follows them is a more precise question than asking about work-life balance, and it usually gets a real answer.
What would you say to a premed doing this for the wrong reasons?
Why ask it
It invites them to name the motivations that do not survive training: parental expectation, status, the idea of medicine rather than its practice. Listen for whether any of it describes you.
What did you give up to get here that you would not give up again?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be specific and personal: years near family, a relationship, a city, an interest they never returned to. This is the cost side of the profession, and it is rarely mentioned in recruitment material.
If you were starting over, would you choose medicine, and would you choose this specialty?
Why ask it
Two separate questions in one, and the answers often differ: many would still do medicine but pick a different field. Asking at the end of the day, after you have seen the work, produces the more considered version.
How will you introduce me, and what should I say if a patient asks me something directly?
Why ask it
Patients often assume anyone in the room is clinical staff. Agreeing in advance that you will defer to the physician avoids a moment where you are asked for reassurance you are not able to give.
Which parts of today should I not write down or repeat anywhere?
Why ask it
Everything about a patient is confidential, including details that seem incidental and anything that would identify a person in a small community. Asking the question makes clear you understand that, and it establishes the boundaries of any notes you take.
What did you notice in that room that I would have missed?
Why ask it
Much of clinical skill is observation: how someone walked in, their breathing, what they said last. Asking straight after the visit gets you the reasoning while it is still fresh.
Can you walk me through what you were thinking in that last visit?
Why ask it
Ask in the corridor afterwards, about a visit you both just saw. You get the reasoning that was invisible from where you stood, which is the whole point of being there rather than reading about it.
What were you ruling out with those last few questions?
Why ask it
Shows you were watching the structure of the interview and not just listening to the conversation. The answer teaches you that history-taking is a series of decisions rather than a form being filled in.
How do you decide whether to order a test or wait?
Why ask it
Gets at judgment under uncertainty, cost, and the harm of a false positive, none of which appear in a textbook algorithm. Listen for whether the patient's own preferences enter the reasoning.
How do you decide how much detail to give a patient?
Why ask it
Listen for how they read what a person wants to know, and how they check understanding without asking anyone to repeat a diagnosis back. This varies more between doctors than almost anything else you will watch.
What do you do when a patient doesn't want what you recommend?
Why ask it
You learn how the person handles being disagreed with, which matters more day to day than diagnostic skill. Watch for whether they talk about persuading or about understanding the reason for the refusal.
What does a note need to contain, and who actually reads it?
Why ask it
The honest answer usually involves several audiences at once: the next clinician, the billing system, and possibly a lawyer. It explains why documentation takes the shape it does.
What kind of case still stays with you afterwards?
Why ask it
Answers here are often quiet and specific. Take the cue: if they give a short answer and change the subject, let it go rather than pressing for detail.
What has changed most about this work since you started?
Why ask it
Electronic records, staffing, insurance and patient expectations have all moved considerably. A physician's account of the direction of travel is more grounded than most commentary about the future of medicine.
What do you wish you had known before you committed to this specialty?
Why ask it
Usually produces one concrete thing: the volume of paperwork, the emotional weight of a particular patient population, the difficulty of finding a job in a given city. Ask it late in the day, once they are comfortable with you.
What does the path from where I am now look like, year by year?
Why ask it
Prerequisites, entrance exams, application cycles, school, residency and any fellowship add up to a long horizon with fixed steps. Hearing it laid out in years makes the commitment concrete before you make it.
What should I be doing over the next two years that would actually matter?
Why ask it
Ask near the end, and expect a short list rather than reassurance. Answers that name a specific kind of clinical exposure or a person to contact are worth more than general encouragement about grades.
What do you look for in a student before you would write them a letter?
Why ask it
You are asking for the standard, not for a letter, and the distinction matters. The answer tells you what to demonstrate over the coming years and often what to do differently today.
What did you spend time on as a premed that turned out not to matter?
Why ask it
Premeds do a great deal out of fear of leaving a gap, and a physician looking back can usually cross an item or two off. Treat it as one person's path, since admissions offices weigh things differently and the rules may have moved since they applied.
How much shadowing had you done before you applied, and did any of it change your mind?
Why ask it
Some will say a single afternoon ruled a specialty out for good. If the honest answer is that they barely shadowed at all, ask what showed them the work instead.
Is there a way for someone at my stage to do more here than observe, such as scribing or volunteering?
Why ask it
Standing at the side shows you the job; a role with a task in it shows whether you can keep its pace. What students are allowed to do depends on the hospital or practice, so ask who the right person to contact is.
Would you be willing to introduce me to a colleague in a different specialty?
Why ask it
Most shadowing is arranged through someone who already knows the student, which makes one introduction worth more than a stack of cold emails. Save it for the end of the day and phrase it so that no is an easy answer.
Was there anything I did today that I should do differently next time?
Why ask it
Rarely asked, and it is how you find out that you were standing in the way, taking notes at the wrong moment, or asking questions within earshot of a patient. Better to hear it than to repeat it elsewhere.
Getting the most from the day
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start
Sort the paperwork early
Most hospitals require an observer agreement, proof of immunizations and sometimes a background check before you can set foot on a ward. Ask weeks ahead, because this is what most often cancels a shadowing day.
Read enough to follow along
Learn what conditions this specialty sees most and the vocabulary attached to them. It moves your questions from what does that word mean to why did you choose that, which is a better use of the time.
Agree the ground rules
Where you stand, when you step out, whether you may be introduced to patients, and what you must not write down. Consent belongs to each patient, and some will decline.
During the day
- 1Hold questions until between patients unless you are invited to ask sooner.
- 2Watch the handovers and phone calls as closely as the examinations, since that is where decisions actually get made.
- 3Note who else influences care: nursing staff, pharmacy, social work, the person managing the schedule.
- 4Write nothing that identifies a patient, on paper or on a phone.
- 5Keep one note per hour of something you did not expect, to ask about later.
- 6Ask at the end whether anything from the day should not be repeated outside the building.
Afterwards
Write it down the same evening
What you saw, what unsettled you, what you were drawn to. Specific recollections are what make a later application or interview answer credible, and they fade within days. Log the date, the hours and the physician's specialty too: applications often ask for them, and a premedical advisor can say what yours will want.
Send a short thank you
A few sentences naming one thing you learned. It is also what makes a second day, or a reference, possible.
Shadow a second setting
One clinic is not the profession. A hospital ward, an outpatient clinic and a community practice differ enough that a single day can send you in the wrong direction.