As Angry Patients Vent Online, Doctors Sue to Silence Them

Not surprisingly, the Internet, with the power of millions of users online at any given time, created product review sites years ago. It’s not a huge leap to get to “Hot or Not?,” basically a review site for people’s pictures. Take it one step further and you have “Competent doctor or quack?” Doctors have long enjoyed limited policing and certainly very little public information about their reliability and effectiveness. I mean, c’mon, it would be unreasonable to assume that all doctors are of the same quality. Some are great, some are mediocre, some are poor. How else can people figure this out, since doctors themselves (and their professional associations) have no reason to provide such useful information to consumers?

Well, through an Internet review site, naturally!

Do it objectively with the intent of providing objective reviews and all is well. Do it to “get back” at a specific doctor, and you’ll run into legal challenges, as this article from today’s Wall Street Journal notes.

Doctors have long accepted that their patients share opinions about the care they have received, knowing that satisfied patients will refer others while those not so happy with their bedside manner might encourage prospective customers to seek treatment elsewhere. But when William Boothe, an ophthalmologist in Texas, saw that one disgruntled former patient was posting his complaints on the Internet, he launched an aggressive response. He sued for libel and other claims, and earlier this year a state judge ordered the material removed from the Web.

The case is one of a growing number of legal battles being waged over Internet postings about medical complaints. More patients are taking their opinions of their local doctors to the Internet, and a wider audience, and that has some medical providers on edge. Several Web sites have sprung up that encourage patients to post anonymous reviews of doctors and dentists, and some frustrated patients have created entire Web sites to criticize specific physicians.

“The potential problems are huge,” said Matt Messina, a dentist in Fairview Park, Ohio, and a spokesman for the American Dental Association. “My reputation is my stock in trade … and we work years and years to build that reputation. To have that shattered potentially [by an Internet posting] is a concern.”

Patient advocates, meanwhile, say patients have First Amendment rights to describe their experiences with physicians. “Blogs and personal Web sites are no different than talking over the back fence,” said Charles Inlander, president of People’s Medical Society, a patient advocacy group in Allentown, Pa. “Those who read it have to take it with whatever grain of salt you would take, just like a neighbor. It’s too bad if doctors are insulted by this.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by John M. Grohol, PsyD (or subscribe to their feed).

Comments

This post currently has 5 comments. You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts on our new comments page.

Trackbacks

No trackbacks yet to this post.

    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 14 Sep 2005
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.