I'd been debating asking my knee surgeon if I could shadow him, because I already have shadowing history with a specialist (my hand guy from this summer), so it'd be kind of redundant with regards to my medical school app. I'm all for jumping through hoops to get into school but I'd like to minimize them because I don't have that much time between school, work, and now, MCAT studying. So if I'm going to shadow somebody out of necessity, it's either going to be a family practitioner or the pulmonologist.
But then I realized that not all of this is about off checking boxes and I'm truly interested in orthopedics, so why not? The hand guy shadowing was limited to his clinic and not the OR, so I figured I'd give the knee surgeon a shot and see what happens with this dude. If I decided I didn't want to do it after inquiring, then I could always not follow up and let it be. But this was my only chance to ask him in person, so I might as well take the opportunity while it presented itself.
So I mentioned to the PA that I wanted to speak to the doctor about shadowing him during my post-op visit, and as she was taking out my stitches she asked, "You mean the OR or the clinic?" I did the Barbara Walters "Wait, what?" face, because I couldn't believe my ears! Heck yeah, I want to shadow him in the OR!!!
Suddenly my meh-I-don't-feel-like-shadowing-an-orthopedist-again feelings went out the window. The PA talked to the office manager, who totally agreed, and the doc seemed very enthusiastic about it when I saw him at the end of my visit so I'm super stoked.
This whole surgery has been one heck of a good decision!
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