A member of my spy network reported overhearing some first-year medical students talking about their clinical shadowing.
Medical students are required to spend time with clinicians in order to get a broad exposure to the various medical disciplines. These students were planning to surf RateMDs to check out potential mentors for shadowing!
Brilliant. (Really.)
Most of the comments on RateMDs pertain to the physician's affability and communication skills. When patients are unhappy with a physician, it almost always means that communication has been poor.
As such, if physicians are rated highly on RateMDs, they're likely to be pleasant to spend time with under other circumstances, i.e. clinical shadowing.
Plus, they'll be good role-models. That counts for something, too.
Hey, you kids! How about a mash-up that combines the list of College of Medicine-approved clinicians with their RateMDs profiles? It'd save you time and probably make for some entertaining reading. Let me know when you've whipped it up.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Outside the RateMDs box
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8 comments:
Is ratemds still running? I tried loading it today and nothing would come through.
Yup. Still running.
I figured that out later...must have been down with maintenance. With all the hate-mail they get, it wouldn't surprise me if they dropped off the face of the earth one day....sadly. It's now the first place I check before consulting a doctor and luckily so, they keep referring me to the bad ones! >:P
Consumers need to take back control of their patient satisfaction, and as in other industries, only the consumer can effect change. So in the case of MyDocHub.com, patients rate their doctor based on waiting room times, total wait time including the time in the patient room with the doctor, and a simple rating of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest on how satisfied they were with that appointment. The ratings are averaged out, so one poor score does not hurt the doctor, but on the other hand, various poor ratings may indicate poor performance by the doctor, since the wisdom of crowds determine a more accurate assessment of the doctor.
These doctor ratings sites are a good thing for patients and doctors. I started one, www.DrScore.com, designed to help doctors get detailed feedback from patients. Not only should medical students use sites like these to find mentors, they can also use a site like DrScore to help them get honest, anonymous feedback from their patients. This helps doctors--established ones or ones in training-- find out what's working well and what isn't.
I disagree with you, Dr. Feldman. It would be great if the anonymous feedback was always honest, but I don't think statements like there are honest: "I wouldn't send my dog to this doctor." or, "If you go to this doctor, he'll kill you."
Statements like these don't help doctors or the patient looking for a doctor. I think the best thing a physician can do for his patient is communicate well with them. I also think it's time that physicians explained to patients the difference between gross negligence and a bad outcome. E.g. My uncle was given Coumadin after an MI. His hemorrage could only be stopped by inserting a foley into his nose. Was that negligence on the part of his physician? Of course not! My uncle had never been on blood thinners, so neither he nor his physician knew what would happen. Being in the medical field, I explained this to my aunt who by that time was blaming the doctor. If I hadn't explained this to her, my aunt could have gone on one of these sites and rated an excellent doctor as one who almost killed her husband.
I think these sites have the potential to be both helpful and detrimental to both doctor and patient.
Thanks for sharing this information. I found it very informative as I have been researching a lot lately on practical matters such as you talk about...
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I agree I think that doctors and patients should communicate more and not rush through a doctors visit or a hospital stay. The patient should not be scared to ask questions or anything to the nurse or doctor. I think that it is great when you go to a new doctor and they actually listen to what they have to say and getting the treatment you need to get better.
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