Posted October 12, 2012 in Blog, Uncategorized
>A colleague of mine, world class aesthetic dermatologist Heidi Waldorf, MD of NYC recently posted a FaceBook entry after a patient had posted a negative review about her online. We do all we can to maintain a professional patient-doctor relationship, but in today’s “YELP” society, despite years of pre-med, medical school, and specialty internship, residency, fellowship, continuing medical education, and countless hours of patient care physicians are anonymously attacked online as if they were the local pizza parlor or dry cleaner.
Personally, I have practiced facial plastic and reconstructive surgery for over 25 years, performing hundreds of treatments and surgical procedures including many rhinoplasties. The one-sided online review process, especially on “filtered” sites such as YELP leaves physicians at the mercy of advertising money hungry “salesmen” who promise that by paying them thousands of dollars/year, negative reviews can be “dropped off” the top page of their sites. My ethical and moral decision has been to encourage patients to write about their positive experiences with our practice to counter balance this trend. In those cases where patients are not happy, as I have for my entire career in practicing medicine, I encourage open personal private communication and pledge to my patients that I will do everything within my abilities to help them achieve their goals.
I have copied Dr. Waldorf’s FaceBook post below. Be kind, and be well.
Heidi Waldorf
remind me to stick with what my patients say to my face, rather than the online bullying… aka ‘reviews’… that anyone can post. Spent Friday morning helping girls feel good about themselves at the Dove Third Self Esteem Weekend launch, but now feel like I need to do some of the dealing with digital nastiness activities myself… Is it fair that anyone can post truly vitriolic things about any doctor, but doctors can never post anything about those same patients???
Lisa Gino Gallina Agreed. My husband shares the same concerns
Brooke Jackson which is why i believe doctors need a database or HIPPA exemption to set the record straight. truth is, you have to question patients who would choose a doctor based on an online review anyway. you know you are a damn good doc and since we are talking about a relationship, not all are meant to survive. chin up my dear. dont waste your time
Diane Hanna The Internet can be a vicious third dimension- do not waste your time reading what individuals post in the cloak of anonymously…..
David Mueller Totally agree. They can write anything for any reason.
Zsuzsanna Fazekas agreed… unfortunately anyone can post (except us), it doesn’t even have to be a real patient
Wendy Lewis NO it is not fair. And every doctor and professional is subjected to this now. Some of these comments are planted by competitors and aggressive SEO firms too. Dont let it get you down. Unfortunately, the law is not on the side of physicians.
Zsuzsanna Fazekas i think physician evaluations should be filled out in the dr’s office ( online) right after the visit and there should be some control mechanism to ensure that it was done by the actual patient
Diane Hanna Anyone is subject to it- in healthcare and outside. It is sad that anyone can create a blog website and say whatever they choose too with out any consequences. The reality is that is still against social norms so when this happens- no one pays “any never mind”. So neither should you. Your credibility is not based on reviews of others.
Jennifer Jablow I had a crazy stalker do it to me
Has nothing to do with your talent
Try to put it out of your mind so they don’t win
Brenda Holtzclaw Turn away from the negative; Turn toward the positive. I will celebrate all that is great within you. I will kill the bad ‘reviews’ with my mind. You project beauty, kindness and enegance into the world. No one believes that gobbledygook. Bullies stink.
David Mueller I actually just caught an employee of a competitor posting something nasty on a review site. I have written letters to the site, including all of the pertinent evidence, and they still have not removed it. I have bee told that the only recourse is to have your gracious and thankful patients write good reviews as to push the bad, false ones way down the page.
Brenda Holtzclaw …..Please don’t spell elegance with 2 “n”s. It ain’t elegant and will make you sound inelegant if you do …and you will be massacred online if you do…lol
Karen S. Norris Usually doctors have the ability to respond to the negative comments and consumers pay close attention to their responses. Also, the good comments will supersede the negative ones. Consumers are pretty internet savvy and know there will always be mean spirited people trying to tarnish a good doctor’s reputation. They pay more attention to the positive comments.
Wendy Lewis Heidi Waldorf The same thing happened to me recently – and the comments were so vicious and juvenile that the “anonymous” poster(s) showed the world their true colors. People aren’t stupid and they are very suspicious of negative posts that appear to be planted
Heidi Waldorf thanks all! the flood of great responses is very recuperative!
Brooke Jackson @David– might this have been yelp! they have more than one law suit against them for this very thing, additionally, for a price, they will remove it which most people will not pay, nor should they. if you dont pay then they keep the negative one’s on top. i had one patient tell me after she didnt see her positive glowing review that she contacted them and they actually told her that they were not going to post her review because she didnt use yelp enough and they could not be sure it was a valid review! would love it if the AMA would get a backbone and deal with this crap
Karen S. Norris Here is a recent article in Forbes about YELP. The title is “Think Yelp Is Biased? Think Again” http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2012/08/16/think-yelp-is-unbiased-think-again/
Many of us rely on Yelp for advice on restaurants, dry cleaners, retailers, han…
Jason Joel Emer It’s really a shame. But with the few bad ones there are 1000s of good ones. A patient in my clinic today said something amazing about you today wo ever having met you! And trusts me more than anyone after having been trained by you.
Jeannette Graf As long as anyone can anonymously post whatever they want or use an assumed name – I doubt that anyone really takes them seriously. Lack do accountability is part of the problem with the internet – just believe in karma. Negativity attracts negativity so the naysayers will get “theirs” while you are amazing and will continue to attract “amazing”
Vivian Bucay I feel your pain, but remember to focus on the good reviews. That said, I agree with Brooke- we need a forum to set the record straight. That is also why I don’t participate in Real Self and some of the other online review sites. Our societies support them financially, but we have no recourse because of HIPAA. Word of mouth is the best referral, but patients do look at online reviews. The smart ones know that not all reviews will be glowing and can sift though those.
Scott McLennan There is even a term now – Cyber Troll – that refers to the vicious, nasty and personal attacks initiated often by anonymous persons. It doesn’t matter if the targets are personalities, individuals or professionals, the results are the same. It is simply bullying. The phenomena is now increasing around the world and the results are indeed interesting. Some countries are now introducing laws to prevent the anonymous and are investigating ways of prosecuting the trolls. The simple advice thus far for the targets of these attacks is to 1. Ignore them, 2. Report them to the host site (twitter, Facebook, google +, Linked-in etc) as offensive 3. Contact one of your friends and colleagues to debrief.
Yoly Light Knowledge vs. Ignorance …. !!!
Glenn Pearl Heidi, I think most people can discern the histironic diatribe and virtually dismiss that kind of crap. You keep your chin up and integrity entact. If a patient asks you about a review (although its unclear to what extent doctor shoppers may depend on such reviews to select a doc) you get the opportunity to show charm and grace in your reserved, carefully worded response.
Monika Kiripolsky I COMPLETELY agree. It is a seriously flawed system!
Brooke Jackson and , to quote a dear friend of mine, this was probably someone with whom “you dont share the same aesthetic vision”
Scott W. Mosser It’s so aggravating, and politicians don’t seem to care one bit about this injustice.
Barbara Williams Whoever posted it must have been the usual “unhappy with life, the world and themselves” type — and unfortunately, the world is full of them. You are a fabulous aesthetic physician with an incredible eye and wonderful techniques!
Stephen Mandy Hopefully, most people do realize the particularly vitriolic reviews and posts are usually made by bitter angry people whose comments rarely reflect the truth.
