 Okay. So I know I've been talking about gearing up for the CASPA season and it's bananas that it's about to open up on April 29th, which is right around the corner. And one of the things that you have to keep in mind with your CASPA application is your hours, specifically your health care experience, your patient care experience, and your shadowing hours. So I've been getting a lot of questions on how to go about documenting them. So that is what we're going to be addressing in today's video. Sit down and look at my channel. Okay. So I had a few questions. And I've been talking about like my stats and, you know, all of the various different components of CASPA and things that you should be looking at. And one of those things is your hours, but specifically we're talking about your shadowing hours in today's videos, but this can go across any of the hours, volunteer, direct patient care, or a health care experience hours. How do you document them? What should you be putting in? What's the format that you should kind of be getting this documentation in? And I mean, how do schools verify it? So I had a question posed to me by Tender, okay? And Tender, I don't know if it's he or she or whoever, but Tender asks, how exactly can I go about documenting the shadowing hours and patient care hours? Is there a form that your supervisor fills out and initial? How do the PA schools verify these hours? Okay. So again, this is all based on the various different schools that you're applying to. The schools that I applied to required me to have my supervisor not only initial but sign off on all of the hours that I was claiming that I had shadowed. So I had to like write an email to the person that I shadowed with, ask them to just, I'm going to meet them with the paper and the documentation that they would need to sign. He asked me what were the days that I shadowed and he knew that the days were pretty much like eight to 12 hours, depending on the day. So I went in, I gave him the hours and he was like, okay, meet me here at this time. And I went and got the documentation and had him sign it. Now that was for one particular school. Other schools just kind of took what I had on CASPA, which you have that option to just obviously put in your shadowing hours in CASPA. How do schools verify it? They always say that they reserve the right to verify any of the information on your CASPA application. Now that may mean your GRE scores, of course, you know, if it's coming directly from the GRE website or your shadowing hours or your healthcare experience hours or, you know, where you worked, they had the right to call on your references and to call on the people that you have signed off or you've claimed were in a supervisory position over you when you accrued said hours. Okay? So it's kind of like a disclaimer to say, you know, you better not lie. You know, this is like, we can test this, we can, if we for whatever reason have some inclination that there's something going on, we reserve the right to go and verify. And so some schools do, not all schools do, but you should really treat all of the programs like they do because the worst thing I made a video about like the worst thing that you can do on your application is lie because you're shooting yourself right in the foot. You're giving yourself kind of like, you think you're giving yourself a head start, but you're really kind of handicapping yourself, right? Because if for whatever reason things go bad, like that's it. Your career is pretty, as a PA, like your future career is kind of done because these program directors and people, they talk to each other. So it's very, you need to be very mindful of that. Now with that being said, how do you go about documenting it? For me, I used a little template that I made in Microsoft Word. There are people who use Google, Excel, like your Excel, like so people use Google Docs or they use their Excel spreadsheet. Some people use my PA box to put in all of their shadowing hours, but it really is a matter of, so with that being said, how do you go about documenting it? So for me, I used a Microsoft Word table, okay? I literally just made a table. I had the location where I was shadowing, who my supervisor was, the date that I shadowed, and how many hours I shadowed. And then I had a spot for my supervisor to sign at the end of everything, like if I was shadowing at the same location for a series of time and I would bring that with me and then you just compile it, okay? So obviously you can do that. You will then scan it in to like CAM scanner or whatever scan tool that you use. And you can just upload it to your computer just so that if the schools ask for those verifications, you have it. If the school has their own verification sheet, then what you need to do is print that out, which it will likely be in the supplemental application. You print that out. Make sure that when you are on your shadowing, your various different shadowing sites, you're able to go ahead and have the contact information for those people that you're shadowing and let them know, hey, I may need to verify this in the future. What's the best way that I can reach you at? So if it is email or phone or text, however it may be, you have their contact information. So when you have to go back on the back end and get them to sign this form that you're now applying to PA schools with, you have it there. Because for me, I did all of my shadowing the year before I applied to PA school and now I'm going in trying to apply and that's like months later for some of the schools type of things. So it's essential that you keep all of that in mind. Some people use Excel spreadsheets, some people use like a Google Doc sheet and they just kind of keep track of their hours that way. And again, you have to have the information of all the people that you're shadowing so that you can verify it. I've heard that some people just kind of keep a track of it in like a little notebook. You can keep track of it through there's like a little spreadsheet kind of thing that I made, forget that's the university for shadowing. You can keep track of it that way. Honestly, it's really up to you. I think the best way to go about doing it though is either making a table or keeping an Excel spreadsheet. That way you can just go and document the hours in that as soon as you get them done. And then again, if it's a matter of you're going to be shadowing at various different sites, you just print that out and have your preceptor sign it like when you're finished. Or have some type of documentation through email saying, thank you so much for allowing me to shadow these eight hours or 12 hours. I really appreciate it. And then you have that for your records. But ultimately, you need to have something for your records because when they ask you to verify, you're going to need to do it if they ask you to verify, okay? Thank you so much for this question. I hope the big takeaway from this is whatever is most convenient for you, okay? So be it Google Docs or Microsoft Word or a spreadsheet on Excel or get that to the university or my PA box, whatever it is, use those tools that are available to you. Whatever is the easiest to you, you write that information in there and keep a great track of it and the preceptors that you shadowed under so that when you have to go back, you have that information. All right, thank you, Tender. I really appreciate you asking me this question. If you guys have any more comments or questions for me, please, I know what to do. Leave it in the comment section below. Go ahead and like this video and subscribe, follow me on Instagram, edit on the PA and on Instagram at get that to the university. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.