MSU CHM Students (MD)

MSU CHM students are eligible for shadowing starting in semester 2 of medical school (HM 553).

ECE Students
You can begin shadowing during Spring semester. You can submit your shadowing request once you know your availability in the spring.

MCE Students
You can submit your shadowing request at any time.

LCE Students
Please work with the Student Programs Administrator or Community Assistant Dean at your campus to determine a good time to shadow before completing the request form.

You must be in good standing with the college and have availability that does not interfere with your medical school schedule/obligations.

If you are requesting to shadow during ECE and you are not yet onboarded at Sparrow (and your experience will occur at Sparrow), you will be asked to complete an Observer Agreement. This will be sent to you upon receipt of your request.

Students are permitted to request shadowing experiences through our office twice per semester. MSU CHM students can request additional experiences, but they must be approved. The process for this is outlined in the request form.

Each experience can be scheduled for a maximum of 4 hours, so you can schedule a maximum of 8 hours through our office per semester.

Please note that UMH-Sparrow Hospital has a maximum per student shadowing limit of 5 half days (maximum of 4 hours for each experience).

Individual offices and preceptors may also enforce their own limits.

Semester dates are determined by the MSU CHM Academic Calendar. The start date for each semester is when tracking begins for that semester. This means shadowing scheduled during winter break would count towards your Fall semester limit, not Spring.

 

1. Request through the shadowing form
2. Wait to hear from our office
3. Attend your experience

Request through the shadowing form

Whether you are requesting your first or your fifth experience, all MSU CHM shadowing requests must go through this form.

Please note that you can only have one pending shadowing request at a time.

A note on providing availability:
It is important to provide accurate and reliable availability when requesting your experience, and to update our office as soon as possible should your availability change. It is not a bad idea to block out some time on your calendar so you remember the availability you provided. 

Rescheduling experiences not only creates extra work for our office, but it inconveniences and frustrates the preceptors and office staff who we coordinate with. Because of this, rescheduling or canceling your experience will generally count as one of your two experiences for the semester. See “What If I Need To Cancel or Reschedule?” below for more information on this policy.

Wait to hear from our office

Once we receive your request and verify that you are in good standing, we will begin reaching out to your requested specialty/preceptor for scheduling. Shadowing can take a few weeks to schedule, and our office provides updates as they are available. We receive a very high volume of requests so a good rule of thumb is to wait about 2-3 weeks before following up. Usually, if you haven’t heard back after a week or so, it’s because we are still working on it and don’t have any updates yet.

Once we have confirmed a date and time for your experience, you will receive a confirmation email from our office which outlines where and when to report. We usually provide information on the preceptor as well, but sometimes we do not know who the preceptor will be beforehand.

Attend your experience

Shadowing is a privilege and involves patients and many other people who arrange and provide the experience. It is critically important to appear at the agreed upon time and date, to wear appropriate attire (see dress code below), and to notify the expected parties if anything should delay your timely arrival.

You should dress business casual with your white coat and ID badge unless you are advised otherwise.

Please do not wear lotions, perfumes, or colognes.

Rescheduling or canceling your experience will generally count as one of your two experiences for the semester.

Special considerations will be made in the event of illness or emergency, but rescheduling is never guaranteed as it is dependent on preceptor availability.

If contact information was not provided in your confirmation email, our office cannot give it to you, but we are happy to pass along your message