Office of
Health Professions Advising

Health professions schools expect that you will have sought opportunities to explore what is involved in the career in which you are interested. In particular, they will expect that you have worked with patients. There are several reasons for this.

First, you may describe yourself as a “people person” and be convinced that you want to have a career in which you interact with others. However, working with people who are ill or infirm presents different kinds of challenges than working with people who are well. You may find that you genuinely enjoy working with sick people; alternatively, you may find that you don’t enjoy working with people who are sick.

Second, it is important for you to realize that medicine involves a great deal of teamwork and that working well as part of a team will be expected of you as a health care professional.

Third, health care professionals must be willing to take a great deal of responsibility for the lives of others. Although no amount of volunteer work will truly let you know how serious this responsibility can be, you may begin to have some appreciation for it by putting yourself in a clinical setting.

Finally, there are many changes occurring in the health care field. Volunteering in a health care setting will help you to understand those changes and give you a more realistic, mature understanding of the field.

At Duke you can explore career options through programs offered by the Career Center, through a program called the Health Careers Exploration Program (HCEP). The HCEP has two components. These are: 1) the clinical internship, in which you will spend about 3 hours a week volunteering in a health care setting for a semester, and 2) a shadowing component, in which you will spend about 3-6 hours a week for a semester shadowing a health care professional (physician, dentist, veterinarian, physician assistant, physical therapist, etc.).

While shadowing a physician can be rewarding and give you some good insight into the life of a physician and the demands placed on him/her, medical/dental schools are most particularly interested that you have spent time interacting directly with patients rather than just following physicians. Veterinary schools require that you have worked with a veterinarian and have a letter of support from her/him.

One of the major changes that is occurring in the delivery of health care is the move towards more outpatient or ambulatory (out of the hospital) care and less inpatient (in the hospital) care. Thus, it is a good idea for you to have spent some time working with patients and/or health care professionals outside of a hospital setting. You may want to try to set up a short term shadow in an outpatient setting with a health care professional in your hometown over a break or the summer.

The Career Center has a program which can help you find such an opportunity with an alumna(us) of Duke, the Summer Alum MD Mentorship Program. Visit the Career Center or contact Jennifer Philips, Career Counselor for Health Professions, Sciences, Research, and Environment. You should regard these as career exploration opportunities and as a convenient means for you to test your reaction to the daily activities and work environments of health professionals. Note that these are not considered by medical schools to be community service.