Doctors Angry With Anonymous Patient Commenters
Tervisetrend, a health website that allows patients to rate their doctors, has been the subject of many angry telephone calls to the website's owner and has come to the attention of a medical ethics committee.
“Bribe-taker. Thief. Drug addict,” says one anonymous description of a doctor. A hot topic of debate among medical professionals, some assert that the online comments are libelous, reported Postimees. The owner of the website, Janno Järv, said 2,500 people visit his site on a daily basis.
“It's one thing to evaluate a doctor's friendliness and care, but what about professionalism? Is a patient qualified to evaluate a doctor's professional abilities?” asked Merje Meisalu, who recently used the website to find a new dentist.
But the main problem is that the interface doesn't include a function that allows medical professionals to respond to the remarks.
“But we can't say that Jüri or Mari hurt my feelings and cussed me out. It's part of the job that we don't talk about patients, but everyone else is allowed to talk about us,” said a family doctor, Diana Ingerainen.
A member of the Medical Association's ethics committee, psychiatrist Andres Lehtmets, agrees. He expanded the debate to say that, in contrast to many other countries, the Estonian health care system stresses choice as a right for patients. He said the system is also expensive. “In societies where health care is rational, such as in Finland, there is not much choice because it is an expensive luxury for society.”
Ott Tammik