If you are a reproductive endocrinologist (RE), you don't have an easy job. I don't mention this to state the obvious, nor flatter you, nor am I referring to surgical talent, study, or training.
It's heir-apparent that one of the most difficult aspects of the role of an RE is serving a population under enormous emotional and mental stress, who are often financially burdened, subject to unfair social pressure, all within great deal of outcome-uncertainty.
I chose to make the wordcloud from the 28 most common negative adjectives used, those that were each used in five or more reviews.
When the fragility of this accord is overwhelmed, the RE's public image often suffers in the form of negative online reviews. I'm not referring to recurring themes across several reviews that really help us understand the personality of a doctor before meeting him or her. If twelve different reviewers use the word "arrogant" to describe you, then you're arrogant. If it's common enough, then it's true that perception is reality.
I'm concerned when an RE's message is interpreted in a completely different way than it was intended. It's bad for the practice, and above all, so many of you have told me how it really upsets you. I have begun a project to comprehensively analyze RE and fertility clinic reviews, to establish a resource of actions that lead to the highest possible level of patient satisfaction.
This second phase of this project is an in-depth analysis I did of 130 RE reviews on ratemds.com. I formed several key anecdotal observations, but I was most interested in aggregating a set of data for you. So I focused only on the negative adjectives used to describe REs and their staff. I skipped over those reviews where no adjectives were used. Each adjective counted only once per review, regardless of how many times it was used. The final tally included:
130 REs
349 reviews
119 different adjectives
As you can see from the word cloud above, the word "rude" was the most common adjective used. In fact, it appeared in 91 different reviews. The data is important because it frames how certain experiences are later recounted to a much broader audience on the web. Understanding the language of dissatisfied patients provides insight to the interactions that lead to their expression of frustration.
Equally, analyzing the language of positive reviews is just as important. Will those words be the exact opposites of the most common negative adjectives, or will others be used? More importantly, the feedback of delighted patients is the compass for the growth of the practice. Comparing the languages of delighted patients and of aggrieved patients will help us form a support-guide for maximizing patient delight and improving staff and physician morale. I expect to have the positive review word cloud done for you by Thanksgiving (2015).
If you would like the raw data from this report, I will be happy to send you the spreadsheet. Just e-mail me at griffin@fertilitybridge.com or leave a comment below.
If you'd like a little further explanation of the data, you can watch my video post here: