Not for the faint of heart: Insider and outsider shadowing experiences within Canadian health care organizations

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to share two researcher's experience about the challenges associated with shadowing within the health care context. Design/methodology/approach - Institutional ethnography and shadowing. Findings - Shadowing is increasingly being used as a data collection method, however, before proceeding to use this approach in today's health care environment, the researcher must give thoughtful consideration to the context. Originality/value - This paper provides a reflexive elaboration of the differences between the insider and outsider perspective when using the shadowing data collection method within health care organizations.