Best Doctors? Really?
Posted by Sonny Saggar on Sun, Jan 22, 2012 @ 01:14 AM
Urgent Matters THE blog for 'The Non-Emergency Room'.
Today's blog is a rant (maybe we should call it a blant?) about a national 'phenomenon' that serves to do nothing but delude the unsuspecting consumer. One of many I'm sure, but this one is particularly misleading.
Every year (typically in the spring and summer) I get approached (
along with probably every other physician in America) to have the 'privilege' of being in 'the forthcoming Best Doctors issue' of some area snazzy hyped-up magazine which is very popular, especially with female readers who, as we all know, are the chief decision-makers for most household purchases, be it a TV set, car or seeking medical care. With all due respect to the magazines, who desperately depend on the revenue from their 'Best Doctors' issue to survive for a few months, or risk being sent to the print-media-oblivion in the sky, where so many magazines are inevitably headed anyway, I make this blant!
There's a better way for the intelligent magazine reader to determine who are the best doctors, just like they would decide who are the best plumbers, or what is the best toy for their two-year old, or what's the best LED HDTV that's over 50 inches, and so on. You can find customer reviews on amazon.com. You can see reviews on Angie's List (even doctors). You can find reviews on Google.com/places and of course Yelp. There are many other such independent fora for posting your opinion for free, without any financial gain or loss, without anything else to motivate the person who makes the comment except to look out for his/her fellow consumer.
With three little kids (now aged 7, 5 and almost 3), my wife and I ALWAYS make a point of reading the reviews on Amazon.com (or whatever site we're buying stuff from) about toys and games. We go straight to the 1-star reviews, and find the ones that appear to have well-articulated concerns about the product.
The only point I'm making is this: it's fine to charge huge amounts to allow physicians to post presidential-looking photos of themselves in the centerfold of glossy magazines, but please, don't call them the 'BEST' physicians. Surely, it would be more accurate to say "the local physicians we sold expensive ads to" or something else which really describes the people in the magazine. I mean, who decides what makes a physician good, better or best, anyway? That's right, just like with a toy truck or a blender, the consumer decides. And not an individual consumer: it's gotta be a lot of them. Only with a large enough population of reviewers, does an opinion mean something. That's the basis behind scientific method and of course, as all these 'best doctors' know (or should know if they re
member their stuff from med school), evidence-based-medicine.
St. Louis Urgent Cares (Downtown Urgent Care and Eureka Urgent Care) refuses to participate in CLAIMING VALUE. We don't pay for it. We CREATE VALUE for our patients, and guess what, in turn they claim it on our behalf. Isn't that the right way to promote your true worth? Allow others to express their opinions, instead of paying someone to write what you want them to say about you? Hey maybe someone will get upset by my blog (a not so secret goal of mine by the way) and do a feature called 'Worst Doctors' with me as the cover guy? That would be so cool (kerching)! Because I'm bad! You know it!
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