Eva Alway
Senior Experience
Nov.9 2023
Job Shadow Reflection Paper
On Oct.18 from 3-8 PM I shadowed Mr. Shawler. Mr. Shawler is a well experienced
emergency doctor for 12+ years, he currently works at the ER department in Legacy Salmon
Creek hospital. Mr. Shawler goes through an eight hour shift without eating a meal or taking a
break, but he sure does a lot of sitting and charting data.
During the first hour as an ER doctor they do a thing called the triage, which is where
they inspect the levels of emergency of each patient. As an ER doctor you are required by law
to see anyone that walks in the ER, even if the person may have come in three times already
and was told no need to be seen. Some ER doctors find this very annoying and as a waste of
resources and time. Throughout the job shadow I saw a lot of druggies and mental illness
people, which scared me a little bit but good thing there was a security guy around. I also saw
two people who were in need of an emergency, one had a low oxygen level even though she
had an oxygen tank! Overall, the triage was the most boring part of the job shadow.
As an ER doctor, you do not use your personal cell phone at work, in fact, you have
your very own phone that the hospital provides. You have to be firm and show confidence
through what you are saying to the patient, otherwise it can be nerve racking for the people.
After the triage, you will go inside of the actual ER room and see patients and diagnose them.
This is where doctors do the most walking through the whole job. ER doctors are paid hourly,
thought Mr. Shawler did not tell me how much he gets paid hourly, he did tell me about RVU.
RVU stands for relative value unit. Where everyone gets a share of the pod, depending on the
condition of the patient and how much they pay or insurance pay, this money is known as the
bonus in the medical world. Mr. Shawler explained this as like a point collecting game, where
the more severely injured a patient you get the more points you get in your pod. Such as if you
have a stroke patient you would gain more points then if you treat a small cold patient.
Throughout the whole five hours experience of watching different ER doctors trying to
save lives, and charting. I truly find it fascinating in the work style as an ER doctor. Fortunately, I
was able to watch a person get intubated, one getting shocked so the heart could go back to
normal, one who unfortunately passed away after coded twice, one who had a really bad
infection on the toe, and many other cool experiences. I was able to see how chaotic it would be
in a room full of eight nurses and two doctors trying to save one’s life. I even saw a X-Ray of
one’s chest which had a nickel in it! That was crazy to think about. ER doctor is truly a job of
unexpectancy and full of critical thinking.
The schooling of an ER doctor is long for sure, it is four years of college (pre-med), 4
years of medical school, and three years of residency. You have to pass the MCAT in order to
get into medical school, then pass the USMLE to get into residency, then do an in person
inspection through your residency. It takes a lot of dedication and study hours to become an ER
doctor. Mr. Shalwer even said he took an extra year to finish college in order to gain a good
foundation for a medical school. I believe that if I am willing to dedicate my time and be
determined in this career, then I will choose to go to medical school. But as for right now, I don’t
really know what I really want to put my time into and what my priorities are in my life yet.
I do love the adrenaline that an ER doctor gets through different patients, working with
other doctors to come up with the best solution, seeing different jobs working together to help
one another, it is just an amazing feeling. On the other hand, I do know that you have to adapt
to the situation quickly and not get the old history in your head, otherwise it may lead to a
blogger issue. Hummm, it is a tough choice to make if I am honest…..
I am currently picking between nursing and doctors as my top two career paths. I would
definitely like to shadow an NP one day and explore my field of options. I don’t feel like I
necessarily want to go through that many years of schooling and spend my prime years in
schools and study, that’s why I feel like an NP would be an easier route than a doctor. NP has a
growth rate of 49% in our nation while doctors are 4%, hospitals are starting to hire more NP
rather than doctors. While being an NP doesn’t get paid as much as a doctor does, I do believe
with the right finance plan I could still manage a happy life.
