Most of us who receive any form of healthcare completely trust their doctors ability to provide the best care possible. In most cases this is sufficient as the doctors, nurses, dentists, hospitals etc. are good at what they do.
Some people even look up to their doctors with almost god like infallibility and wouldn’t dare question their diagnosis or work done on them because they completely trust them with their lives, literally.
In reality, doctors are just like everybody else, human and imperfect and some are bound to be better than others.
For most services dealing with the good and bad is a normal fact of life, you just take your business elsewhere if you are not pleased with the services, when you health is on the line it’s a different matter.
Doctors have been largely free from constructive criticism and no formal internal healthcare organization provides public rating and review services.
It’s human nature to prefer being unaccountable, few doctors will ask publicly to be rated and reviewed. What union wants to advertise the fact that some of it’s employee’s are poor at what they do? So governing doctor organizations and unions either don’t want to know if members are doing a bad job or hide the information if they find it out, rather than face the public for being honest.
This lack of critique is a recipe for poor MD’s to continue delivering poor service for their entire careers. With little accountability it’s human nature that some people with abuse this, much like a poor mechanic will take you for a ride with car repairs. While your wallet and car might take a hit with the poor mechanic it’s worse with your health, or that of a loved one.
Fortunately there is no need to wait for governments, hospitals, clinics, unions or healthcare associations to provide you with the means to provide objective public patient reviews. The internet is now providing these services for you. A few websites, like Healthcare Reviews, provide public patient reviews of your local doctors.
Using these websites will reward the best physicians with public endorsements and discourage poor doctors from continuing with poor services. Some of the poorer practitioners may believe their services are good, but only with some objective patient feedback will they become as good as they think they are.
I have a lot of respect for the vast majority of doctors, they are generally extremely hard working and devoted to their jobs. It’s the poorer physicians I would like to be held accountable, and when someone’s health is at stake that isn’t too much to ask for.
Usually when people apply for work or get a contractor to work on their home they get a reference, why not get a reference when someone is working on your body, isn’t that more important?
Tags: doctor, doctor rating, doctor reviews, health care, healthcare, hospital, hospital rating, hospital review, md, nurse, physician, rating, review, site
