Palm Beach County Medical Society

PBCMS Pre-Med Mentor Program

The Medical Society is looking for volunteer physician mentors to match up with interested premed students. The program is designed to fill a need for "clinical shadowing" experiences for students. These exposures to clinical medicine have become increasingly important in the evaluation of medical school applications. While enhancing the student experience the program enables physicians to mentor future medical students by exposing them to the physician's practice on a flexible schedule that best meets the physician's goals and time commitments.

The Medical Society serves an infrastructure role by creating an online contact list where interested students and physicians in a variety of specialties can get together.

To be successful, we must first start with a list of physician volunteers. The Society is compiling an online registry of interested physicians. Once we have a significant number of physicians on board we will notify local, regional and national university pre-professional services about the mentoring registry. It is anticipated that students will then contact prospective mentors. Shadowing/mentoring experiences will be worked out on an individual basis. Some may be brief and others more intense and of longer duration. At physician discretion interaction may occur in an office, clinic or other facility i.e. your office, endoscopy center, dialysis unit, inpatient setting or whatever best meets mutual needs. We believe that this program will be of value to all involved and will fill a need recognized by students, pre professional programs and members of the Society.

Students meeting those criteria should follow these steps:
1.The physicians who are interested in participating are listed below. You will contact the physician at his office or home if retired volunteering at a clinic. Discuss preferences regarding time commitment, availability and goals for your shadowing experience. This will vary based on your schedule, interests and needs. The program is designed to be flexible.

2. Be cognizant that individual physicians may not be available during certain weeks or months or at specific times to accommodate your schedule. However, with some initiative, we hope that you will be able to observe clinical situations with experienced physicians to help you in the decision making process as you move forward through the application process. Admission committees take clinical shadowing experiences seriously and we want to be able to provide quality opportunities to you in Palm Beach County.