Troubles finding shadowing opportunities? Must read!!

[futurePA10]

I noticed all the threads regarding people having troubles finding shadowing opportunities, so I thought I would recommend a solution. Take this as advice and not a fix all solution (although it did work for everyone else that tried it). For a mere $75 investment, you can get a 12 month affiliate membership to AAPA.org. With this membership, it allows access to the nationwide member directory. Do a search for the members with in a diameter (ex: 10 miles) from your zip. It will then pull up ALL the PAs who are members with AAPA for that area. It gets better! They also include the school they graduated, email address (important), current job, etc. From here, you can use this info to contact the PAs via email for shadowing opportunities. To put into perspective, I contacted approx 15 PAs who graduated from the two schools where I was applying to (ATSU and MWU in AZ). All of them repsonded and offered to help in one way or the other. About 4-5 said they couldn't have shadows due to company policy, but were more than happy to answer any questions I had. The others were all willing to allow shadows. I ended up shadowing 5 and 1 of those even offered to write me a letter of recommendation after we had spent so much time together. In addition, you can also add this membership to your application. Not sure it helps in any way, but it is still showing a monetary committment to becoming a PA. So, in my opinion, this was well worth the $75 dollar investment.

[Double Helix-7]

Does this membership expire?

[netsirk]

Thank you so much for this! I just signed up and am looking at a list of potential PAs to contact. Do you mind if I ask how you went about asking to shadow them?

[PM2016]

I noticed all the threads regarding people having troubles finding shadowing opportunities, so I thought I would recommend a solution. Take this as advice and not a fix all solution (although it did work for everyone else that tried it). For a mere $75 investment, you can get a 12 month affiliate membership to AAPA.org. With this membership, it allows access to the nationwide member directory. Do a search for the members with in a diameter (ex: 10 miles) from your zip. It will then pull up ALL the PAs who are members with AAPA for that area. It gets better! They also include the school they graduated, email address (important), current job, etc. From here, you can use this info to contact the PAs via email for shadowing opportunities. To put into perspective, I contacted approx 15 PAs who graduated from the two schools where I was applying to (ATSU and MWU in AZ). All of them repsonded and offered to help in one way or the other. About 4-5 said they couldn't have shadows due to company policy, but were more than happy to answer any questions I had. The others were all willing to allow shadows. I ended up shadowing 5 and 1 of those even offered to write me a letter of recommendation after we had spent so much time together. In addition, you can also add this membership to your application. Not sure it helps in any way, but it is still showing a monetary committment to becoming a PA. So, in my opinion, this was well worth the $75 dollar investment.

 

You are one lucky person. So far I have email 40 PA's and have yet to receive a single yes. Word of advice to those using this method, make sure you state that you received their contact info from AAPA directory!

[PM2016]

I noticed all the threads regarding people having troubles finding shadowing opportunities, so I thought I would recommend a solution. Take this as advice and not a fix all solution (although it did work for everyone else that tried it). For a mere $75 investment, you can get a 12 month affiliate membership to AAPA.org. With this membership, it allows access to the nationwide member directory. Do a search for the members with in a diameter (ex: 10 miles) from your zip. It will then pull up ALL the PAs who are members with AAPA for that area. It gets better! They also include the school they graduated, email address (important), current job, etc. From here, you can use this info to contact the PAs via email for shadowing opportunities. To put into perspective, I contacted approx 15 PAs who graduated from the two schools where I was applying to (ATSU and MWU in AZ). All of them repsonded and offered to help in one way or the other. About 4-5 said they couldn't have shadows due to company policy, but were more than happy to answer any questions I had. The others were all willing to allow shadows. I ended up shadowing 5 and 1 of those even offered to write me a letter of recommendation after we had spent so much time together. In addition, you can also add this membership to your application. Not sure it helps in any way, but it is still showing a monetary committment to becoming a PA. So, in my opinion, this was well worth the $75 dollar investment.

 

You are one lucky person. So far I have email 40 PA's and have yet to receive a single yes. Word of advice to those using this method, make sure you state that you received their contact info from AAPA directory!

[write2bre]

Great advice! Seeing the schools you applied to I hope it's safe to say you're a fellow Phoenician, which makes this thread all the better for me! I've been searching for a great way to find more shadowing opportunities because so far I have only had the chance to shadow one PA who was through my childhood family doctor. I pray I get as lucky with responses as you did.

[tjohn]

For those of you looking for shadowing opportunities in the Phoenix area, the Phoenix Fire Health Center has a couple of PAs who are open to shadowing. Contact Phoenix fire Health Center at 150 S. 12th Street. Phoenix AZ, 85034 - (602) 495-5797. Good luck.

[write2bre]

Thanks for the information!