Approaching Your W&A Entry. Shadowing is great introductory clinical exposure and prevalent among applicants—88% of Johns Hopkins' 2018 accepted students had shadowing experience. But to med schools, shadowing weighs less than volunteering at free clinics, doing clinical research, or working as a medical scribe, etc. That's because it typically doesn't lead to significant patient interactions. Still, shadowing someone in a field you're very interested in is informative, and you can have poignant experiences. We had one client who shadowed an infectious disease doctor abroad and learned that potential life-altering treatments regularly can't cross international lines.
Since patient interaction isn't common in these scenarios, you want to emphasize how else a shadowing experience helped you build clinical skills or expanded your knowledge of a medical specialty, preferably one you're interested in pursuing after medical school. If these things don't apply to your shadowing experience, here are some other things to consider: What did you see—and how did it affect you? Did a doctor calmly handle an angry patient? Did you seek more information on any condition a physician diagnosed in front of you? Did you learn something about a doctor's day-to-day life that you didn't know before? Unless you had one incredible experience or really need to fill up your W&A, grouping your shadowing experiences in one entry is a great idea.
Connect Your Shadowing to Your Future. If you know what area of medicine you'd like to study, having multiple shadowing experiences with different physicians practicing the same specialty shows the depth of that interest. That makes for a powerful shadowing entry. Who you shadow should be relevant to your goals. If you're interested in congenital heart disease because you worked on a clinical research study related to it or your dad survived a heart attack, try to shadow multiple cardiologists. Shadowing a broad range of specialties is exciting and may indeed be a part of your deciding what field you're most interested in—that makes for a strong entry. But there's something sturdy and assuring about a med school candidate who has pursued one area in depth. A consistent interest is compelling.