Observerships Basics for IMGs

There are three entities that must come together to make an Observership happen:

1. You, of course

2. The Physician that you will be observing: The physician that you end up 'observing' is also referred to as the 'sponsor', preceptor or the mentor. The term 'sponsor' in the context of an observership often finds some IMGs scratching their heads wondering if that 'sponsors' involves some visa or money matters - Well, No, that does not. The term in this context means: "a person who vouches or is responsible for a person or thing" [yeah , I scrubbed that off dictionary.com ;-) ]

3. The administrative office that will take care of the paperwork and other stuff depending on the hospitals / programs / institution policies. Paperwork involves getting your immunization / medical records, visa issues and HIPAA issues (shall deal with HIPAA soon)


Now, looking at the way various IMGs have historically got observerships, I tend to classify observership arrangements in three categories:

Informal, Semi-formal and Formal

[Lol...I am almost making this sound like a science in itself ;-) ]


1. Informal:

In a majority of places trying for observerships is an informal affair, it is upto you to make contact with a potential physician 'sponsor' via email or phone or in person to make a request. If you are lucky to write to the right person at the right time and right place, you will find a doc who is willing and get the stone rolling with the administrative office. Hmmm..so the more efforts and more places you contact, the better your chances will be. And if you got contacts in the form of residents, physician relatives, your 'chances' almost become a 'certainty' ;-)

2. Semi-Formal:

In this scenario, the department will allow observerships but will typically want you to first make contact with their physicians themselves - i.e. you gotta find a willing physician 'sponsor' yourself, and then the administration does the rest of the paperwork for you. Thus, they have an observership program in place, just that there are no formal applications accepted.


3. Formal:

This category, unfortunately the most uncommon, where the office will formally accept potential applications and then forward them to their staff physicians to make the selections on a rolling basis. The observerships mentioned on this blog with a link to application forms belong to this category, some are free while some need you to pay a fee.






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