As someone who is very close to two doctors, I can tell you that networking and elbows matters just about as much as any other career.
They have to play networking and social games with their careers to a level that is well and truly beyond anything my wife and I have ever had to deal with as software engineers.
My wife and I have board game nights and that qualifies as networking. We're playing board games with folks from FAANG companies, triple A video game developers, interesting start-ups, etc... who I've met through this group. Our friends in the medical profession can't get away with something like that.