I’ve never logged onto Angie’s List, but I might be on it. Physicians are now routinely rated on various internet sites that the public can view before making appointments, or just as a parlor game. You can look up doctors just as you would check ratings on toaster ovens, snow blowers, cars and restaurants. Are these sites truly useful? Can a grading site inform the public about a physician’s medical quality? Can a visitor to the site be confident that the view expressed is true and objective? I’m skeptical. Easier to rate a fridge than a doc I’ve thought deeply on the issue of medical quality since I was a medical intern in 1985. Indeed, it was my preoccupation with this subject that led to the birth of this blog years ago. Review the blog’s categories at the right of your screen and note how many labels include the term ‘quality’. A recurrent theme here is how difficult it is to measure medical quality, even for medical insiders who know the blood and
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.