Online Public Relations Thoughts

Here is a futile effort on the part of doctors. They are trying to stop patients from rating them on the internet. That won't happen and their efforts won't work. For good and ill, the internet has brought transparency to the medical profession. Even though some ratings may be ill-informed and others bogus, patients will keep putting them up. There is good reason for this. The medical profession protected itself for too long against outsiders. Doctors wouldn't rate other doctors even when they knew there was incompetence or something worse. So, patients are doing it for them. It is a growing PR problem, and one doctors will need to address sooner or later with a better controlled rating system. The longer they are reluctant to make that move, the more patients will take ratings into their own hands. There will be a point of no return after which physicians will lose any control over who rates them and how.