Questions to Ask While Shadowing a Doctor
Questions for a day spent shadowing a physician, written for students considering medicine. They cover how to conduct yourself around patients, how clinical decisions are actually made, what the training path costs, and what the work is like over a career.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Where should I stand, and what should I do when you go into a room?
Why ask it
Ask this before the first patient rather than working it out in front of one. Physicians have a clear preference about whether you enter, where you stand, and whether you leave for examinations.
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.
How did you decide on that plan rather than the alternatives?
Why ask it
Decisions rest on likelihood, risk, cost, what the patient will realistically do, and how long you can safely wait. Hearing the trade-offs named is the closest a student gets to the actual work.
How much of your week is patient contact, and how much is documentation and administration?
Why ask it
The proportion surprises most students, and it varies enormously by specialty and setting. This one answer explains much of what physicians find wearing about the job.
What are you recording in the chart right now, and who reads it later?
Why ask it
Notes serve the next clinician, the patient, billing and sometimes a court, and those audiences pull in different directions. Watching how a note is written is a part of medicine that training covers late.
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 declines what you have recommended?
Why ask it
The answer shows how someone holds a professional opinion and a patient's autonomy at the same time. Watch whether the relationship survives the disagreement, because that is the skill.
What do you do in the few minutes after a difficult conversation?
Why ask it
Most physicians have a routine, even if it is only a short walk or writing the note before the next patient. It is a practical question about a part of the job that receives very little formal attention.
Why this specialty, and what did you nearly choose instead?
Why ask it
The near miss is usually more informative than the choice, because it reveals what the trade-off was: hours, continuity of care, procedures, how much uncertainty they wanted to live with.
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 did training cost you, in money and in the rest of your life?
Why ask it
Debt, relocations, missed events and the years spent are all real and are all discussed less than they should be. Most physicians will answer plainly if you ask plainly.
What do you wish you had understood before you applied?
Why ask it
Common answers involve how much of medicine is systems and paperwork, or how little control junior doctors have over their schedule. It is the question that saves people from finding out at year four.
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 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.
How do you keep up with new evidence, and how do you decide when to change practice?
Why ask it
Listen for a system rather than intent: a journal club, a specialty update, a colleague they trust. The gap between a study appearing and practice changing is part of what you are learning here.
How do the nurses, pharmacists and technicians here change your decisions?
Why ask it
In practice a great deal of safety comes from other people catching things, and physicians who work well with teams say so readily. An answer that gives them no role is worth noticing too.
How do you find out when a decision turns out to have been wrong?
Why ask it
Ask about the mechanism, not a specific case: follow-up, morbidity and mortality review, a call from another hospital. How a doctor talks about error tells you a great deal about how they practice.
Would you choose medicine again, and would you choose it starting now?
Why ask it
These are two different questions and the answers often differ. Ask both, and ask what they would want to know about the next twenty years before deciding.
Conducting yourself on a clinical day
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you arrive
Sort out the paperwork in advance
Many sites require a confidentiality agreement, proof of immunizations, a background check or a badge before you can be on the floor. Ask a week ahead, because none of it can be arranged on the morning.
Ask what to wear and what to bring
Closed shoes, no strong scent, minimal jewelry and modest layers cover most settings. Ask specifically whether a white coat is expected, since wearing one when you should not can confuse patients about your role.
Eat, hydrate and use the bathroom first
Clinical days run long and pauses come at unpredictable times. Fainting during a procedure is common in students and is largely preventable.
In the room
- Wait to be invited in, and step out without being asked if a patient looks uncomfortable or an examination begins.
- Introduce yourself as a student who is observing, if you are asked to introduce yourself at all.
- Do not touch a patient, equipment or a keyboard unless you have been told to.
- Keep your phone away entirely; taking it out in a clinical space reads as photographing patients, whatever you are doing.
- Take notes about the reasoning and the terminology, never about identifying details.
- Say nothing about the case in corridors, elevators, cafeterias or parking lots.
- If you start to feel unwell, sit down or step out quietly rather than trying to stay upright.
Asking questions without getting in the way
Save them for between patients
Clinics run behind and the minutes between rooms are the physician's only slack. Keep a running list and offer it when they ask whether you have questions.
Ask about decisions, not diagnoses
How did you weigh those options is a better question than what does this patient have. It also keeps the conversation away from details you have no need to know.
Notice what you are not enjoying
The point of shadowing is to find out whether the work suits you, and boredom or discomfort is as useful as interest. Note it honestly rather than deciding what you are supposed to feel.
Follow up briefly
A short thank-you note naming one thing you learned, sent within a day or two. If you want a letter of recommendation later, ask separately and after several visits, not at the end of one.