Snow day diatribe

The weather is conspiring against me providing you with interesting factoids! Well while we wait for the snow/sleet/ice/etc to stop, I thought I would vent on a topic that's been on my mind of late. Yesterday there was an alumni association event targeted toward medical students for the purpose of networking. I hate networking. Loathe it, actually. But it took me a while to riddle-out why.

I pride myself in having a wide, diverse network of people that I know, but I don't purposefully meet people just to have connections to exploit. That just seems disingenuous. I understand that it's usually mutual - that when you attend an event explicitly designed around networking, you will only find people there that are hoping to create a similar connection with you. This doesn't make me any more likely to attend, in fact quite the opposite. I also understand that networking is necessary in areas like business and entrepreneurship, but I think it can and should be more organic in medicine.

Reflecting on this a bit more, I think this drives to the heart of my outspoken dislike for premed students. First of all, let me clarify that "premed student" in this context does not simple mean a student who wants to go to medical school. Premeds are Type A, cut-throat, grade grubbing, aggressively qualified students who will go to med school or else. They have perfect grades, perfect test scores, a dozen inconsistently attended volunteer activities, and just enough research experience to get a letter of recommendation. Premeds have a list of everything it takes to get into medical school and will do everything on that list, because it's on the list.

Imagine you are opening a new medical school and you wanted to recruit the very first class of students. What would you look for in an applicant? They'd need to be smart, studious, caring, and committed. You'd want someone who did well in school because they're smart and studious, someone who voluntarily volunteers (not as redundant as you'd think) because they want to give back to their community, someone who has some experience in medicine to see if they really like it, and someone who sticks with their commitments because the 7+ years of added school they are signing up for will test their resolve.

For premeds classes aren't about fulfilling a curiosity, volunteering is a burden on their schedules, and research is another talking point on their applications. Everything is a means to an end. I'm not saying that they are all in it for less-than-noble motives like job security, financial stability and prestige (though those people exist), but that they have such tunnel vision toward that goal of helping people as an orthopaedic surgeon that they lose sight of all the people they could help along the way.

So back to networking. Doctors are great at it. When you treat thousands of people from every walk of life, you naturally build a strong, diverse network of connections. The medical field is also all about collaboration. Everything the body is connected, so when something goes wrong, doctors often have to consult with other specialists to get the best care for their patients. In this way doctors build a professional network quite organically as well. So why do we need to network outside of our normal interactions with the people around us?

I guess my point is that I'm fine with people going to events like the one that set off this tirade, but I refuse to feel guilty for not attending. </rant>