Editor’s Note: An adverse incident early in a career created a greater awareness of the essence of professional relationships.
Trust no one, male or female, even when initial impressions are positive. Keep an open mind about professional relationships but don’t let your guard down. What motivates people & how you fit into their worldview is not always obvious at the outset.
As I finished my fellowship and was looking for jobs, I had a first interview at a medical center in my preferred region of practice. I was called back for a second interview which pleased me. When I attempted to confirm the meeting, I was told the institution was no longer interested in me. The orthopedic department had received an unsolicited very negative phone call about me from a faculty member in my residency program. Therefore, they could not hire me.
My fellowship director was shocked by this and called a colleague at the interview site to learn more about their reason for rejecting me. He later encouraged me to take legal action against the person who had made the initial phone call. I assumed I knew who the negative voice was. After some investigation and advice from an employment attorney, I did go ahead and file a case citing “tortious interference.” This term describes intentional interference with contractual relations when one person intentionally damages someone else’s contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing economic harm.
Why would someone who had helped train me embark on a vendetta against me so early in my career? I believe it started on an orthopedic rotation during residency where they were the rotation director. I had just returned to work after giving birth to my first child. I was later accused of several transgressions by them which, in my opinion, were “half-truths”. These were delivered in a written evaluation. An example is not showing up for a case I was scheduled to scrub on. It is true that I was not present, but the reason was due to being scrubbed on an overlapping more complex case with another attending. The surgeon who reported me, in fact, had a second attending scrubbed in with them so their case was not adversely affected from a technical standpoint. There was no mention of me being scrubbed on the other case in the complaint. There were several other similar examples of offenses committed without placing them in the context of their occurrence. This resulted in said attending trying to fail me on this rotation.
As further investigation of my performance during residency revealed, I had seen clinic patients who were Medicaid recipients on behalf of the disgruntled attending when they felt they needed to be elsewhere. They were disciplined for signing my notes when they were off sight for fear of the institution being accused of Medicaid fraud. I think this, on top of the other “offenses” led to their retaliation against me.
The irony here is that I love the orthopedic subspecialty area where this fraught rotation occurred. In fact, the rotation gave me my introduction to the work. I later chose this subspecialty for my fellowship & eventual practice focus.
In the end, I dropped the legal case as the prospective site of employment later denied they had received a negative phone call. In the interim, they hired a surgeon for the position who was already board certified. Emerging from my fellowship, I was not yet certified.
As I followed the career of the person who had prevented me from obtaining my preferred position, they moved onto at least two other practice locations. They were also noted to have conflicts with other orthopedic surgeons, both female and male. I was later able to speak with one of their female colleagues from a later workplace who confirmed her own problems with the individual. This was a reality check for me. No, I wasn’t solely the problem. I felt vindicated of my own internal guilt and it proved to be a confidence booster.
Thankfully, I have been in a single specialty practice for over a decade. I have partners who are true colleagues with similar values. They want to do excellent work and to have time with their families. They want other practice members to have time with theirs. We help each other, even on short notice. We also discuss cases and, in a way, mentor each other. It’s a real breath of fresh air. I feel very grateful. “When one door closes, another opens….” Trite but filled with truth.