For pre-PA and pre-med students · Excel
The free shadowing hours template
A spreadsheet built the way CASPA and AMCAS actually ask for hours, not another blank grid. Enter your email and the download starts right away.
What's inside the template
- An hours log with the categories CASPA and AMCAS actually ask about, so nothing needs re-sorting at application time
- A dashboard tab with running totals per category and per experience
- A CASPA helper that groups hours the way the application wants them entered
- A supervisor contacts tab, because verification requests go to people, and you will need their emails long after you finished the shift
How to log shadowing hours so they survive an application
Applications do not just ask "how many hours". They ask for totals per experience, dates, and a supervisor who can be contacted. The way you log decides whether that is a two-minute copy-paste or a week of reconstruction. For every shift, record:
- The date, start and end time, and total hours
- The site and department (clinic name, unit)
- The physician or supervisor's name, credential, and a working email or phone number
- One line about what you actually observed or did, useful for essays and interviews later
Log it the same day. Contemporaneous records are more accurate, and if a program ever questions a number, "here is my log from that week, signed by the person who was there" ends the conversation. Reconstructed totals do not.
How many shadowing hours for medical school?
There is no universal minimum. Commonly cited targets run from around 40 to 100+ hours, and breadth across specialties tends to matter more than raw volume. Check each school's requirements directly; they differ more than people expect.
How many shadowing hours for PA school?
It varies by program. Many PA programs weight patient care experience far more heavily than shadowing, and some set explicit PCE minimums in the thousands of hours. Verify each program's CASPA page; the categories in this template match how you will have to report them.
Does anyone actually verify these hours?
CASPA and AMCAS are largely honor systems, but programs can contact the supervisors you list, and some do. That asymmetry is the whole risk: nobody checks until the moment it matters most. It is also why Hourcrest exists: hours signed by your supervisor as you go, sealed, and exportable. The template is the manual version; the app makes it automatic.