User blog comment:Necator7/Open Heart, Book 1/2 - Vote of Confidence/@comment-36277500-20191211181918/@comment-37484301-20191212032753

You have a lot in common with @Mags Lefayette (although her profession is journalism). While I don't have similar experiences personally, I understand. I work in healthcare but I'm not a physician. When I graduated 20 years ago, my field was "smaller" (only 3 schools in California, each graduating class was about 150 students) so the older guys who worked longer and then went into management, they all knew each other. It was hard to interview at another hospital without the current hospital knowing because apparently the managers golfed together. Nowadays though, there are probably 10 schools in California (more in other states) churning out more and more graduates and so the competition keeps growing. I'm "stuck" in my little satellite office (there are 6 offices on my hospital campus) but I don't mind. I get along with the departments I take care of (Obstetrics/gynecology, Dermatology, and Allergy) and so I figure I'll just work here til I retire. I used to want to go into management but I quickly found out about the cliques and certain managers were sleeping with others and that was something I did not want to degrade myself to (and I never fit into cliques because I'm a honest hard worker and apparently am not good at kissing-butt or being "fake"). I thought it was weird that certain female managers were married and were unfaithful but later I found out that they got divorced; at least they didn't have children.

Yes, if you know people who can tell you the relationships of others in your specialty, that would be great. So you can request someone who would be fair and not looking out for their own best interests. I just find it sad that people -especially the doctors you are dealing with- can be that petty. My BF would say it's a common failing in most women, although I don't fall into that category.

My thoughts and support are with you! Keep fighting! I imagine how exhausting it must be but we're here for you, even though I'm... probably 6000 miles away.