Dates: Student sets dates

Participation:Open to All Students

Description Select and recruit a member of another profession (senior student or practicing clinician) to plan a shadowing experience, including a minimum of 4 hours of clinical exposure. Document the experiences (procedures, tests, patients seen) and describe the new understanding of the role of that professional.

An alternative is to visit and research a health agency to find out the goals and purpose of the agency, the services offered, and the professional team and specific roles of the professionals. See the second list of activities for visiting a health agency.

Activities Professional Shadowing:

1. Identify a professional to shadow and set up a shadowing schedule of 4 hours minimum. The shadowing experience will likely include direct observation of interactions between the member of another profession and his/her client. Simple but essential rules of etiquette apply. Typically, the host professional will introduce you to the client, and ensure that the client is comfortable with your presence. You should attempt to minimize the effects of having a third party present during the professional-client interaction.

2. Write up a summary of your observations by answering the following questions:

   a. Provide documentation of specific procedures, tests, kinds of patients, etc. that were observed during the shadowing experience.

   b. For this profession, what are the most common types of disorders or diagnoses that are treated or managed?

   c. What is the general scope of practice? Is practice age or population specific?

   d. What is the process for handling requests for services or initiating the assessment, consult, treatment, test, etc.?

   e. What are the specialties that exist within the profession?

   f. What practitioner levels exist? (Certification, Registry, State Licensure, Entry Level, Advanced Level, etc.)

   g. Under what kinds of circumstances or what types of patients might benefit from collaboration between our two professions?

   h. What other health care professionals are usually included in the care of the patient? What is their role?

   i. Does the professional work within an interdisciplinary team? What is the role of the different professionals in the team?

Activites for Health Service Agency:

1. Select a health service agency or institution (other than the one where you work) that you want to learn more about. Identify a person who works at that agency. Make an appointment (schedule one hour). If you work in a hospital one of the hospital administrators or social workers can probably help you to identify a contact.
2. Prepare for your visit by looking up the agency or institution on the web. Look up the professional association (Americal Hospital Association, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, etc.), or see if the organizaion has its own personal web site.
3. During your meeting, find out the services offered by the agency, the populations served, the different professions that work there, and how they do/could work with your profession. Ask the person for a specific case example of how he/she worked with someone from your profession.
4. Write a 300 word reflection on how your discipline does/could work with the agency/institution you are studying. Include the example you heard above.