Unpopular opinion? Shadowing is not that valuable

I have seen people say over and over that a premeds should get shadowing in to help inform whether medicine is the right path for them. That shadowing is important to understand what a doctor actually does. However, I have done quite a bit of shadowing now, and I don't think that advice is accurate.

Imo, 99% of people shadow for the purpose of shadowing, NOT to decide if medicine is for them. I have heard the argument that shadowing helps premeds understand the difference in roles between providers. But in my experience shadowing, I observed minimal differences between the patient counseling of NPs, PAs, and doctors. The main difference I experienced from shadowing is that obviously the doctor does surgery and not the other providers. But I'm not interested in surgery, so to me, that's kind of irrelevant.

I feel that I learned way more about the difference between doctors and other APPs from being a patient. Shadowing didn't change my perception of what a doctor does at all compared to what I already learned in my experience as a patient with an extremely rare and pretty serious condition, from getting to know my doctors as people, and from reading doctor memoirs. Through those experiences, I actually got to understand the impact that the doctor has on a patient's longitudinal outcomes. I got to see doctors work together. I got to see how doctors opinions differ strongly, how their clinical decisions are informed. I got to experience the emotional aspects of the doctor-patient relationship and felt doctor become invested in me and root for me. There's something incredibly special about that. To seek out and consider the breadth of medical information available to help a patient, to guide them through difficult decisions, to debate those decisions with colleagues, to take risks, to commiserate when things go wrong, to celebrate when things go right. There's nothing simultaneously intellectually stimulating and emotionally stimulating like that, imo. I want to do that for other people. Even if it represents only a small part of the job. Yet I often see people speak of it as if you have no right to think you know what a doctor does until you have shadowed, either through traditional shadowing or clinical exp working with a doctor.

Another issue I have with the push for shadowing is the fact that watching someone else do a job is fundamentally different than actually doing that job. I am a non-trad career changer, currently an elementary school teacher of several years. I was an intern teacher, so I never did student teaching. The first day I practiced teaching was the first day of school in my first year. If I had shadowed a teacher prior to becoming one, I would not only feel strongly that I was incapable of teaching, I don't think I would even see any of the positives in the role. In reality, actually being a teacher and being put into that position of sole responsibility pushed me to step up and become a good teacher for the benefit of my students. It compelled me to care and to learn how to be a better person, how to have inner authority, and how to enjoy a difficult and demanding job. I think it would be really unfortunate if shadowing did dissuade someone from pursuing medicine because they felt detached, overwhelmed, or shy during the experience.

Anyway, I am not saying not to shadow, however I do think that we don't need to pretend that it's about more than checking a box and hopefully seeing something cool. And maybe also figuring out what shoes make your feet hurt the least.