LOST In My Healthcare IT Job Search

My name is Danielle Byron.   I am a Health IT project leader who is passionate about using technology to improve patient safety and outcomes.   Today is my writing premiere for the Healthcare IT Job Seeker Blog.    Thank you to Gwen Darling for reaching out to me and giving me this opportunity.     For many others this week  is the premiere of the last season of LOST.     What does my job search have to do with LOST?  Let’s recap…

The Island — There I was flying along in the previous job and next thing I know the plane crashes and I wake up on The Island (of Transition).     I am not blessed to be on this Island with the good looking cast of LOST.   If I was a tropical island with Josh Holloway somehow I think I may not be working so hard to get off…

I am working very hard to get off The Island, just like the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.    Every week I am faced with new challenges.     From battles with the smoke monster (aka the black hole of Internet job applications), the plot twists of Meaningful Use and looking out to the horizon to see when the ARRA funds will arrive.

The Oceanic Six –  Jack, Kate, Aaron, Syed, Hurly and Sun are just a few of the characters that were on the fated Oceanic Flight 815.     They each bring unique dimensions to the search for a way off to get permanently off the island.

Jack, is a skilled surgeon who ends up working a janitorial job for a few episodes.   On some days I think about hanging up the Health IT career and going to work in the housekeeping department.     But like Jack — it’s not our destiny.

I describe Kate as the passionate heroine, out solving injustices in her own hands.    I’m passionate about improving healthcare through technology.     I don’t want to join “The Others” (in my case the consumer goods world).

Kate helps to mother Aaron who was born on The Island.   His birth gave a new life and hope to the group.  I’m currently part of a CCHIT Work group that is in the process of developing and publishing EMR Criteria for Behavioral Health.  Volunteering my skills to help give birth to new projects helps me feel good about the life beyond job search — yet at the same time it helps to put me out there with others who may help get me off the island.

Then there is Hurley’s emotional roller coaster that sometimes lands him in a psych ward.   On some days job search bottoms me out so low that I see myself with Hurly as a fellow patient rather than working to get hired in on the staff.    But we both have a great deal of resilience so we pick ourselves up and get back on that roller coaster – because it is really fun going up.

Syed is the dark stormy character who has lost several loves.   The days when I find that the offer goes to someone else because I was over-qualified or they didn’t like my interview suit makes me feel like a hurricane is passing over me.    The storms pass, Syed becomes likable again and I get refocused on the search.

Finally there is Sun who is all about quiet positive determination.   She planted seeds, convinced, gave birth and is determined to get her family back together.    Planting seeds is all about what I do in job search, with as many people as I can connect with.   The careful watering and tending to these seeds results in job leads, job interviews and the big one — getting off the Island and back to paid employment.

Skills, passions, new life, emotional roller coasters, storms and most of all quiet positive determination are all part of LOST in my job search.  A Newsweek article called LOST  “A show about faith.   It’s not for nothing that this season’s publicity photo features the cast in a Last Supper-Style Tableau.”    So I keep the faith, LOST the series will end, and I will get off The Island and back to paid employment.

Who is your favorite LOST character (or other fictional character) and how can you use them to inspire you in your own search to get off the Island?

Stay tuned for the next post in the Diary of a Healthcare IT Job Seeker. . .