How does student shadowing work in your medical office/practice/location?

We do allow student shadowing at our practice, and we've had numerous pre-med, pre-DO, and pre-PA students shadow and/or work for us over the years.  If students are just wanting to shadow for a period of time, they reach out to our Practice Administrator (me) who will coordinate dates/times and other details.  I typically assign them to one of our practitioners based on the type of schooling they are going for or area of interest.  They will sign a HIPAA and privacy form on their first day as well as a couple of other internal documents.  From there they follow the practitioner and his/her medical asst.  

We do enjoy having students.  We have had 5 or 6 pre-PA students actually work full time for us for their year between undergrad and PA School, and it has been quite successful!  It is fulfilling to be able to watch them go off and continue their education knowing we gave them some real world experience.  

I do have students shadowing me fairly often; in fact it is now almost every week. Most of the time these are students in advances courses of study such as pre-med, OT or PT programs. I have even had some high school students shadow me through my hospital rounds and once in my office. In my case, I even have other doctors shadowing me because I have a specialized practice. This is a great way for intelligent, motivated individuals to be exposed to a specialty they usually know very little about. There is always an "ah-ha!" moment that gets them excited about what it means to have a profession instead of just a job. Even though many of them will not follow into my specialty, they will learn things about patient care that they can use for the rest of their professional lives. I have one student who comes back to observe every time she is in the Maryland area. She plans to follow into my area of practice (which is desperately underserved) so in the long term many thousands of patients will benefit from the learning opportunity that shadowing provides. I always introduce the student and ask the patient if they are comfortable with an observer. Not all patients will object even if they are uncomfortable, so if it is possibly that type of case I may have the student spend that time slot with another doctor to maintain patient confidence. 

While I think student shadowing is very important, I find it tough to allow in my clinic as many patients require privacy to receive the full benefit of the treatments that I offer. I ask patients if they are comfortable with an intern and if not we don't invite them in. I enjoy teaching students and do my best to offer shadowing when possible though.

We allow PT and PTA prospective students to shadow on a case by case basis and we hire prospective student as aides when appropriate 

We take students to shadow our practice. Prior to shadowing, we have students sign a HIPPA release form and like to get to know their character before having them in our clinic. 

We always welcome students into our office .... 

I am a private practice physician and used to be a teaching physician at a medical school. I have much less restrictions to having student shadowing in my office. I have them come with me to see patients and always get patients approval for having them in the room. Students love the experience as they get to see what life is really like in medicine, and at at the same time get to learn something.

Student shadowing doesn't work in my office.  Therapy sessions are confidential.

I welcome the opportunity to have students shadow me. There’s nothing like day to day experience to give a student a clear perspective about career choices

We welcome the opportunity to have students shadow the doctors.