General Advice About Finding PAs to Shadow?

[LunaB]

Hi everyone, apologies if this type of post is not allowed, but I was wondering if anyone had any general tips on finding PAs to shadow?

I go to a liberal arts college which has virtually no pre-health program and so far my efforts to find a PA to shadow have been totally unsuccessful. I've reached out to several  alums from my college who are now practicing PAs with what I thought was a very polite and well-written email with my resume attached but only a couple people have even responded and those who did told me that the practices they work for don't allow shadowing. I'm not really sure how to move forward from this? Does anyone have any tips on where/how they've found PAs to shadow?

[LadyNichiavelli]

I found a PA to shadow through LinkedIn. I would connect with them and then send a message introducing myself and asking them for the opportunity. It took a lot of trial and error but it was worth it. 

[LunaB]

Thank you! I was actually thinking about doing that so I'm relieved that someone else has tried it!

[Maryness]

I recommend LinkdIn, PASO (https://pashadowonline.com/), and traditional researching online of clinics and looking under their list of providers to see if there is a PA and then going in person with your resume and letter requesting to shadow. Your best bet are family practice/internal medicine clinics as they usually are private practice and not affiliated with a hospital that would require credentialing or lots of paperwork to shadow. Emailing can only get you so far and requires minimal effort. I once had a student physically come into my clinic with her resume in hand and a separate formal letter requesting to shadow me. This definitely was the most impressive to me that she put in the extra effort. I ended up writing her a rec letter because she was a fantastic student and now she is starting PA school in the fall.