How Many Clinical and Shadowing Hours for Med School

How Many Clinical and Shadowing Hours for Med School

There is no hour minimum on the TMDSAS or AACOMAS application pages we checked, and the two school pages we found that print a number print it as a floor or a reference. The University of Mississippi Medical Center expects at least 35 hours of U.S. physician shadowing. Utah's Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine prints 800 clinical hours as an average for competitive applicants, "not a minimum requirement."

So a flat "100 hours" rule is not one any of these pages states. A school's printed number tells you what that school asked. The description field tells a reader what you did with the hours, and that is where an application gains or loses ground. If your hours are already logged, the AMCAS Work and Activities rubric reads the descriptions.

Every school, TMDSAS and AACOM page quoted below was checked on November 7, 2026. AAMC pages, including the AMCAS Work/Activities instructions and AAMC's applicant and matriculant survey data, refused automated retrieval that day (HTTP 403). This page quotes no AAMC rule or figure; where AMCAS matters, read the AMCAS Work/Activities section yourself.

What schools and application services actually publish

Utah adds: "Any hour amounts listed are provided as a reference, not as minimum threshold requirements. Hour amounts are only one factor in the overall application review."

Why a published number is a floor, not a target

Our view: meet every published minimum at the schools on your list, then stop counting and start deepening. Past the floor, hours on their own add little that a reader can see. The form already shows the number; the 500-character TMDSAS description or the AACOMAS description is what shows what you learned. Ten more hours in a new short role give a reader one more entry to skim. Ten more hours in the role you already hold give you a better story for the description.

The basis: no page above treats hours as a pass mark. UMMC sets a shadowing floor. Utah calls its numbers "one factor". AACOM asks for "some" clinical experience and a DO shadowing experience. TMDSAS and AACOMAS only collect the numbers.

The countercase: if a school you are applying to prints an average, that number is real information about its pool. A Utah applicant with 150 clinical hours is far from the 800-hour average Utah publishes and should treat that as a reason to add hours before applying, not as noise. And the rule above is ours, not any school's.

Unknown, and not published by any page we checked: how individual committees weigh hours against each other.

How TMDSAS and AACOMAS record hours

The two systems we could read ask for hours differently, so log raw dates and weekly hours, not just a running total.

If the physician you shadowed agrees to write for you, the letter from a doctor you shadowed page shows how the hours appear in the letter.

TMDSAS (Activities):

• Each healthcare entry asks for "hours worked per week, total cumulative hours" and a description of up to 500 characters.
• Current activities count "the hours you have completed AND the estimated hours you plan to complete by September 30th."
• Planned activities, after the deadline: "Estimate (but don't overinflate) the hours you expect to complete from October 1st until your end date."
• Shadowing several doctors at one site: "create ONE entry per location and list each doctor in the description." A different specialty may be its own entry.
• A paid healthcare job may go under both Healthcare and Employment, with different descriptions.

AACOMAS (Experiences):

• Enter "the average weekly number of hours that you completed for this experience during the date range that you indicated."
• "Enter only current and in-progress experiences (not planned experiences)."
• "you cannot repeat hours between experience types." If one job fits two types, "divide the hours and duties accordingly."
• Each entry names a supervisor "that programs can contact to verify that this experience occurred."

AMCAS: not verified here. Read the official AMCAS Work/Activities section for its hour fields, entry limit and character limits before you enter anything.

The TMDSAS 2028 timeline has a worked example of current and planned hours for a Texas applicant.

Clinical, shadowing, volunteering, research: which bucket

Use the definitions the application gives you, not a forum's.

• Shadowing is observation. TMDSAS lists it under Healthcare Activities. UMMC defines it as "the observation of the practice of medicine by physicians outside of a classroom setting."
• Scribing, clerical work and patient transport count as healthcare in AACOMAS. Its Healthcare Experience examples include "performing clerical work," "delivering patient food," "taking vitals" and "working as a scribe." TMDSAS lists "scribing" under Healthcare Activities too.
• Volunteering outside health care has its own AACOMAS type, "Non-Healthcare Volunteer or Community Enrichment."
• Research is its own type in both systems. UMMC lists research exposure as "recommended", one step below health care exposure.

AACOMAS also says "it is not guaranteed that your experience will be accepted by every program in the way you categorize it," and tells you to ask the program directly if a requirement depends on the category.

For writing the clinical entries themselves, see how to write clinical experience for medical school and the AMCAS work and activities examples by category. If you scribe, the scribe to MD pathway guide covers that role. If you are applying DO without DO shadowing, read the DO essay without shadowing guide.

Constructed example: one scribe job logged in two systems

Constructed example, written by us, not a real applicant entry. Context (invented): a gap-year applicant has scribed in an emergency department two 10-hour shifts a week (20 hours) since early August 2026, will keep the job through May 2028, and submits to TMDSAS and AACOMAS on June 1, 2027. The TMDSAS split assumes the EY2027 rule moves forward one year.

The 472-character TMDSAS description:

Emergency department scribe, two 10-hour shifts a week. I document the history and exam in real time for four attending physicians and queue orders for their signature. The work taught me how a physician narrows a complaint: one attending asks every chest-pain patient what they were doing when it started, and the answer changes the workup more often than I expected. I now write the timeline first and the symptoms second, and the attendings correct my notes less often.

It states the role in one sentence, shows one thing observed about physician reasoning, and ends with a change in the writer's own work. It does not restate the hours, which are already in the form.

Gap year: how many more hours before you apply

Run this check for each school on your list, in order:

1. Published floor. Does the school print a minimum (UMMC's 35 shadowing hours is one)? If you are under it, close the gap before you submit. That is a requirement, not a preference.
2. Published reference. Does it print an average (Utah does)? If you are far below it, add hours in your strongest clinical role before you add a new one.
3. Category gaps. Do you have no direct patient contact at all, or no shadowing at all? Fill the empty category first. AACOM's DO list names both clinical experience and shadowing an osteopathic physician.
4. Depth. If 1 to 3 pass, keep one continuing clinical role through the cycle. In TMDSAS its future hours appear as projected and planned hours. In AACOMAS only current hours count.
5. Stop. If the role is steady and every category has an entry, more hours will not change your application as much as better descriptions will. Spend the time on the writing.

The gap year medical school statistics guide covers how many applicants take a gap year at all.

Questions about clinical and shadowing hours

Is there a minimum number of shadowing hours for medical school?

Not in the TMDSAS or AACOMAS instructions we checked. Some schools set one: UMMC expects at least 35 hours of U.S.-based physician shadowing. AAMC pages were not retrievable, so we do not report what AAMC says.

How many clinical hours do competitive applicants have?

Utah's medical school is one school that publishes this: an average of 800 clinical hours for competitive MD applicants, "provided as a reference, not a minimum requirement." We found no national figure we could verify today.

Does scribing count as clinical experience?

AACOMAS lists "working as a scribe" as Healthcare Experience, and TMDSAS lists "scribing" under Healthcare Activities. AACOMAS adds that programs may not accept an experience "in the way you categorize it," so ask any school that sets a clinical requirement.

Can I count hours I have not done yet?

In TMDSAS, yes: current activities include projected hours through September 30, and later hours go under Planned Activities. AACOMAS says to enter "only current and in-progress experiences (not planned experiences)."

Does virtual shadowing count?

TMDSAS asks whether each healthcare activity "was virtual". UMMC's 35-hour expectation is for "U.S.-based physician shadowing" and its definition includes "observing direct patient care". Check each school's own page.

Review the writing you send next

The next thing you write is the description for each experience, and for AMCAS the most meaningful remarks. Get a free Quick Review of your activity descriptions against GradPilot's AMCAS Work and Activities rubric, which checks that each entry shows your own role with specific details; the most meaningful experience rubric checks for a concrete result and what the experience changed in you. For TMDSAS and AACOMAS entries, the AMCAS Work and Activities rubric is the closest rubric GradPilot has; paste each system's character limit with the entry. More guides are on the medical school essays hub and the medical school review page. proposed: "Before you round up, read whether medical schools can verify your hours." (after How TMDSAS and AACOMAS record hours)

Sources

Retrieved November 7, 2026.

• University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Medicine, Life Experiences (no year stated): 35-hour shadowing expectation, shadowing definition, health care exposure and research wording.
• University of Utah Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, MD Admissions Requirements (2026-2027 cycle): clinical and service averages, "reference, not a minimum".
• AACOM, Admissions Requirements (no year stated): personal qualities list including clinical experience and DO shadowing.
• TMDSAS, Activities (no year stated; examples mix cycles): hour fields, projected and planned hours, shadowing entries, 500-character descriptions.
• AACOMAS Applicant Help Center, Experiences (no year stated): weekly hours, no planned experiences, no repeated hours, experience types.
• Not retrieved: AAMC AMCAS Work/Activities instructions and AAMC survey data (HTTP 403 on November 7, 2026). Nothing from them is quoted.