Signing Away Your Right to Rate Your Doctor Online

Have you ever consulted Angie’s List before hiring a contractor or an electrician? Was it helpful? Apparently, some doctors’ offices are now requiring that patients sign a form saying they will not post comments about their physician on websites. People like Angie’s List co-founder Angie Hicks are protesting, calling these waivers “gag orders.”(Angie Hicks - Medical Gag Orders)

I understand the discomfort some doctors have with on-line rating sites. We’ve all seen the effect of a little anonymity and an easily accessible “post” button. Goodbye superego. Hello snarky, mean, inappropriate and sometimes downright cruel commentary. Despite the occasional abuses, I do think that these sites can be very helpful for patients. Yes, comments often have more to do with demeanor than diagnostic skill; promptness rather than pharmacological expertise. But as a patient, I do want a doctor with a good bedside manner. And if patient after patient complains about Doctor X’s listening skills or Doctor Y’s lack of empathy, I want to know.

If a doctor asked me to sign a form forfeiting my right to rate him or her online, I would think twice about seeing that doctor. What about you?

Preaching Compassionate Health Care

I’m thinking of hiring the Archbishop of Westminster as a spokesman for the Schwartz Center. The Head of England and Wales’ Roman Catholic Church recently urged U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) to do more to create a culture of “true compassion and healing,” which he defined as “a deep respect and attentive care of the whole person…genuine care characterized by a sense of humility, a profound respect for others, and a refusal to see them as no more than a medical or behavioral problem to be tackled and resolved.” Archbishop Vincent Nichols made his remarks at a Mass for the sick at Westminster Cathedral. (Guardian)

I’m not sure if the archbishop knows this, but the NHS is trying to create a more compassionate system, and one prong of its plan is Schwartz Center Rounds. The Rounds®, a facilitated forum where healthcare professionals from all disciplines come together to talk about difficult emotional and social issues that arise in caring for patients, are being piloted at two NHS hospitals. The hope is that they will usher in a new era of patient-centered care across the system.

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Bedside Manner's New Digs

Do you remember the first time you left home to live on your own? Perhaps to go to college? Or for your first job? I’m feeling a little like that now. After more than two years of living comfortably on CarePages and Bedside Manner, two terrific online communities, my blog is striking out on its own. I’ll be paying my own rent, keeping my own hours, and trying to keep the fridge filled with interesting ideas (OK, that analogy got a little thin at the end).

I’ll still be writing about compassionate healthcare – innovative programs that promote it, new studies that shed light on it, where it’s done well and where it’s not. I will promote best practices in compassionate care by sharing real life stories. My target audience is those in a position to change our system, to inject it with the humanism patients so desperately want. That includes all types of healthcare administrators, clinicians and policy makers, to name a few. Of course, we welcome all readers, especially clinicians, patients and others interested in compassionate healthcare.