Shadowing

For more information, including the most current updates, and shadowing contacts, please refer to the Canvas Shadowing Modules (Year 1 site; Year 2 site).

• Please review your pre-clerkship COVID-19 Protocols and follow them consistently.
  • As a pre-clerkship student, you should not be seeing any patients who screen + for symptoms of COVID-19, nor should you be seeing any patients who are confirmed to have COVID-19.
  • The SHA does not currently allow pre-clerkship students to be involved in aerosol-generating medical procedures (AGMPs); you should not be involved with any clinical activities that require you to wear an N95 mask.
• If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, even mild ones, please stay home, self-isolate and call 811. There will be door screeners and temperature checks when entering health care facilities.
• Continuous masking is required in all health care facilities. You must follow the PPE guidelines of any unit on which you are shadowing. If you are in the vicinity of anyone who is unmasked, please speak with your clinical supervisor about wearing a face shield for added protection.
• The clinician you are shadowing may be used to supervising clerks but will not have supervised a pre-clerkship student recently. Please remind them of your stage of training so they are aware of the limitations regarding which patients you can and cannot see, and that you have not yet done PPE training and N95 fitting.
• If you have not yet sent your proof of COVID-19 vaccination to your Administrative Coordinator (sonja.macdonald@usask.ca) please do so as soon as possible. A photo of your wallet card is sufficient. Please send this proof after each of your first and second doses. Some supervisors may expect vaccination for students to participate in extra-curricular shadowing. If you are unable to have the COVID-19 vaccination, or chose not to have the vaccination, please reach out to Dr. McKague (m.mckague@usask.ca) or your Year Chair/Year Coordinator or the Office of Student Affairs if you have not already done so.”

Every medical student is required to complete 10 hours (5 hours/term) per year of medical practitioner shadowing for MEDC 111 and MEDC 211 Success in Medical School courses in Year 1 and Year 2.  You may shadow physicians or nearly any professional discipline in the health care field. If you are unsure if a particular discipline should qualify as a medical shadowing experience, please check with your Year Coordinator in the UGME office.

• For students shadowing in Regina, please coordinate your Shadowing through Shery Lindenbach Sherry.Lindenbach@saskhealthauthority.ca. For students shadowing in Saskatoon or elsewhere in SK, you may directly contact preceptors or Departmental contacts. More information on shadowing, including our shadowing policy and contacts, are available on our shadowing webpage.
• For liability purposes, you must log your shadowing in One45. If you need a refresher on how to log your shadowing, see the instruction video here.
• While you may shadow outside of your home site within SK, out-of-province shadowing by our students, or shadowing or electives by Canadian MD students from outside SK, is not allowed as per national agreement.”

Thank you for facilitating this opportunity for a first or second year student to observe you and your team to help learn about the health care system and his/her future role in it.

Curricular and extra-curricular pre-clerkship medical experiences are arranged by agreement between medical students and volunteer supervisors of the student’s choosing to help students integrate their learning to date and assist them in career decision-making.

Any involvement of students in clinical situations must take into account their current level of training.  First year medical students will have certification in Basic First Aid and CPR for (HCP) Health Care Providers.  They are learning clinical and pre-clinical sciences, patient interviewing, and basic physical examination skills.  They MAY have had exposure to pathology, pharmacology or some systemic study of disease.  They MAY have learned discipline-specific clinical sciences or technical skills. If necessary, ASK the student about their level of training.  

Pre-clerkship students should NOT be recording histories or physical findings for official medical records.

It is required that any patient-related activity by these students be supervised DIRECTLY AND IN PERSON by a supervisor who has signed the Medical Shadowing Activity Log. 

It is expected that the patient(s) be asked for permission to involve the students in their care, and will be free to decline.