Shadowing Program

Initial Contact Advice

Once you have selected a doctor through the YMPO website, an email will be sent to the doctor of your choice regarding the matching, and you will also be able to view the contact information for your doctor. Although all our doctors have volunteered their time to allow for undergraduates to shadow them, initially contacting them to get things started can be occasionally tricky. Of course, the ease of contact varies from doctor to doctor, but many factors can play a role in how quickly you are able to get in touch with your doctor. For example, the email notifying the your doctor of your matching can get lost in a sea of emails thathe/she receives, or you may just catch your doctor on a very busy week/day. So here are some tips on how to initially contact your doctor:

1. Once your selection has been approved on the YMPO website and you can view the contact information for your doctor, email them to set up a time whenyou can meet to talk over what you hope to gain through the shadowing experience. It is always good for you and your doctor to understand each other's expectations from the start. Please keep in mind that it is best for both you and your doctor if you make appointments to meet/shadow through the doctor's secretary. More on this below.
2. If your doctor doesn't respond to your initial email(s) within about 3 days time, try calling them. If you are not provided with your doctor's phone number on the YMPO website, you can always find his/her number on the Yale Phonebook. Your phone call will usually be directed to the doctor's secretary, who can help you at least set up an appointment to talk to your doctor face-to-face about what it is you wish to gain through shadowing.
3. If you still cannot get a hold of your doctor, try paying a visit to his/her office. It may just happen to be that your doctor is away for that week. The doctor's office can be usually found in the Yale Phonebook. Most doctors have secretaries who will still be in their offices even if the doctors themselves are temporarily away. Talking to the doctor's secretary is often a very useful way to establish contact with your doctor.
4. Finally, once you have contacted your doctor, be sure to regularly communicate with them (e.g. weekly basis) to make sure both of you know when you will be coming by. Doctors' schedules often vary from week to week, so it is good to keep track of any changes. Here is where your doctor's secretary can be of big help once again. Unlike your doctor, the secretary will almost always be in the office, working outyour doctor's schedule (clinic, operations, presentations, etc); this is the secretary's job after all. The secretary will have a very good idea of how your doctor's day-to-day schedule looks, usually for many months ahead. So it is much more effective for you to work things out with the doctor's secretary (via email or phone) regarding when you can come into shadow, since they will be able to immediately tell you what your doctor's schedule looks like on a certain day. All you have to do then is to simply confirm a date and a time with the secretary, and send an email to your doctor just to let them know you'll be coming by on that day; it's alwaysnice to give your doctor a heads-up once everything is set.

We hope that the above tips will help you initiate what will become a valuable shadowing experience. Please feel free to contact Karen Zheng at any point if you have any questions, comments, or concerns with your shadowing experience. Also, YMPO always sends out a semester-end survey to all its shadowing program participants to obtain useful feedback on how we can better our program. This is usually a very short survey that can be completed on-line, and it is required that all those who shadow complete a survey regarding their experience, along with attending three of the YMPO-sponsored lectures during the semester.