Hello Lamppost

Networking has always been something at which I do not excel. Being from a long line of bank workers, business(wo)men, and engineers, I came into medicine with almost no connections. To be honest, I wanted to believe that, since I was not in the business field, I did not need to rely to heavily on connections. I felt that my hard work, personality, talents could do all the speaking for me. I was happy to find that, whatever it was, I got into the residency programme of my choice, in the city of my choice. To be honest, I did try my best, worked hard, and felt my higher-ups got to know my personality and talents well. Through this entire process, though, I didn't realize just how much people talking behind your back matters. Maybe that's my backwards, passive aggressive way of networking - getting people to "gossip" about me.

So it started with an undergraduate supervisor talking with his colleague over some surgery, asking if he'd take me under for a summer. Then, it was this new supervisor, talking about me to the other attendings in the city. On a slight tangent, I remember seeing from the corner of my eye an attending I worked with, whispering something into his wife's ear as he looked at me. And, throughout my electives, hearing about my neurosurgically related past (which I had not disclosed myself), confirmed that people were still talking.

But, it wasn't until I got back into Kingston that I realized more fully how much people talk. Yes, otolaryngology is a smaller discipline/residency program, but that small? Today, I ran into an attending that I had minimal contact with. I enjoyed my time in clinic with him (1-2 half days) as well as a half day in the OR. Despite this limited exposure, he knew I wanted to get into ENT and that London was amongst my top choices. So, in the middle of his rounds, I took a second to talk to him, letting him know that I'd be spending the next 5 years in London. He was so excited! Now, this is a guy who doesn't really recognize your presence when you're in clinic with him. I was surprised (and flattered) that he even remembered my name! Today, I was even more taken aback when he gave me a hug. A HUG! He then told me that he was not surprised...because he had been talking to some important people in London.

Yep, people talk. People talk about you. And no matter how little of an impact you feel you've made, you can't take it for granted. And perhaps I found a great, tight knit community, where in spite my inability to network, people have done it for me. To be honest, probably due to my ISTJ personality, I'm going to ride this wave as far as I can go.