In theory, of course, it’s a great idea for people to give their opinions and rate their experiences with any goods or services they buy. The notion goes back long before the Internet with publications like Consumer Reports, which is now itself online. Sites such as Angie’s List are very popular and can give you testimonials about providers of everything from home renovations to car repair to daycare. So it’s not surprising several entrepreneurs have started physician rating sites. A huge issue is the sample size is so tiny; many physicians get only a single review. Also, the reviews are anonymous, and there have been several well-known examples of stalkers trashing a physician’s reputation out of some animus to the person. It’s also well known perhaps a fifth or so of reviews at sites like this are fake anyway.
So I wondered. I’ve been practicing for 35 years and cared for thousands of patients. I have moved a few times and now work at several hospitals, so perhaps I’m hard to track down correctly, but maybe not. Also, rating pediatric critical care providers for patient choice reasons seems silly on the face of it because nobody shops around and plans for things when their child is suddenly critically ill or injured. You just go to the nearest place and are treated by whoever is there. Still, I thought it would be interesting to look. I would imagine I was a parent looking to get the inside scoop on that Johnson guy. The sites generally contain some biographical information about the physician: address, insurance accepted, where he or she trained, if he or she had ever been disciplined by an official body. I wondered how accurate that would be for me. So here we go.
U.S. News and World Report: This site listed me. It had my correct address and correctly listed my specialty, medical school, and years of practice (although it only said 21 plus). It was correct in all my training data and even listed a couple of awards I’ve gotten. It looks as if they obtained my CV from Doximity, a physician site. They did miss several of the hospitals where I have credentials, including the one where I mainly practice, but they did get my various medical licenses correct. On the other hand, they didn’t rate me at all. So if I were a parent checking up on me, I’d only have my credentials to go on.
Healthgrades: This one got my main hospital correct, unlike US News. It also got my years of practice correct. But there were no reviews of me at all.
Vitals: I’m listed on this site. The details of my training are skimpy but what is there is correct. They also got my main hospital affiliation correct. I got one review: 5 stars. I’ve seen hundreds of patients at that hospital, yielding one review.
MD.com: This one was hopelessly wrong. It stated I practice primary care pediatrics, which I don’t and never have, and it had an address for me that was ten years out of date. It had no reviews of me. I suspect this website was just abandoned by its owners.
UCompare: These guys had me listed. The address was wrong, and there were no reviews.
RateMDs: I wasn’t listed.
ZocDocs: I wasn’t listed.
WebMD: This is a huge site. Most people use it for information about diseases, but it also lists doctors. It listed me, but there were no reviews.
So there you have it. I’ve cared for thousands of children over the years, and many hundreds since these doctor rating sites have been around. I had one review. It was a great one, but really, I can’t see that any parent would have found searching for information about me to be useful. The great majority of Google hits were to this website, the one you are reading now.
Christopher Johnson is a pediatric intensive care physician and author of Keeping Your Kids Out of the Emergency Room: A Guide to Childhood Injuries and Illnesses, Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face, How to Talk to Your Child’s Doctor: A Handbook for Parents, and How Your Child Heals: An Inside Look At Common Childhood Ailments. He blogs at his self-titled site, Christopher Johnson, MD.
Image credit: Christopher Johnson, Shutterstock.com
