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What is the mentorship program?What kinds of mentorship experiences does a student expect?Who can participate?How are students matched with a physician?What is expected of me as a mentor? How should the time with the pre-med student be structured?What is the time commitment?
What is the mentorship program?The Washington Academy of Family Physicians (WAFP) Pre-Med Mentorship Program operates primarily as a referral service to pre-med students seeking to learn more about Family Medicine, by connecting qualified candidates to family physicians in communities throughout Washington State. The purpose of the program is to give pre-med students with a strong interest in pursuing a medical career exposure to the life and practice of a family physician by providing opportunities to meet with a physician one-on-one.
What kinds of mentorship experiences does a student expect?The program is flexible and designed to give the student and physician mentor the ability to customize the experience so that it meets the interests and needs of the student while enabling the mentor to volunteer for what is realistic in the context of his/her practice. The mentorship can be a phone conversation, a meeting for coffee or a meal, or a more comprehensive series of shadowing experiences. The point of the program is to facilitate one-on-one communications between a family physician and interested student.
Who can participate?Undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students interested in a career in Family Medicine, who intend to enroll in medical school within the next 3 years, can apply to participate.
How are students matched with a physician?Mentorship applications are evaluated and matched on a quarterly basis (see schedule below). The applications will be qualified by WAFP staff, and successful applicants are notified of their acceptance within a couple weeks of the closing date.
Approved student applications are then grouped by requested geographical region/city/neighborhood, and an email request is sent to available mentors in the areas indicated on the applications. Interested physician mentors will reply with their availability, and staff will then match the physician to a student and provide contact information.
For Mentorship Conducted Between
Student Application Deadline
October - December
September 15
January – March
December 15
April – June
March 15
July – September
June 15
What is expected of me as a mentor? How should the time with the pre-med student be structured?WAFP does not dictate how your time with the pre-med student is structured. The scope and scheduling of the mentorship experience will be determined directly between you and your matched pre-med student.
To increase the value of the time you spend with a pre-med student, the WAFP Commission on Education has listed several suggestions of projects that could be implemented into a mentorship experience:
It may also be a good idea to check with your clinic administrator for any specific shadowing requirements unique to your practice (i.e. some clinics require a confidentiality agreement to be signed, others may limit the total number of hours a student can shadow in clinic).
What is the time commitment?The pre-med mentorship experience is a short-term opportunity for participants. The exact length of your experience will be determined between you and the pre-med student you are matched with.
Many of our volunteer family physician mentors are able to provide at least a few hours of job shadowing experience. The exact length of time and frequency will be dependent upon the practice environment and stated policies of the individual clinic or hospital.
Those family physicians that cannot provide shadowing at this time, can still offer a wealth of insight into the field of Family Medicine, and are a wonderful resource for student questions. Some of our mentor physicians have been willing to meet for coffee or a meal, or be available for mentoring on a longer-term basis via email/phone.
At the end of the quarter in which you participate as a mentor, we will send you an evaluation form. This is an opportunity for you to provide feedback which helps us to improve and refine the program.
**Some medical schools, including the University of Washington, require pre-med students to have at least 40 hours of shadowing experience before applying. Please note that WAFP has NO expectation that a physician participating in this program would provide a full 40 hours of shadowing. Students are encouraged to seek out a variety of shadowing experiences versus all 40 hours with one physician.**