The danger of grading doctors…

It goes without saying that caregivers are not interchangeable. Quality matters. What else is there other than our health? From the day I began as a doctor, the absence of a legitimate meritocracy has been a source of inflammation. In 1996, when I started private practice, referrals depended too much on old-boy networks. In 2014, the situation is worse. Now, referrals depend almost exclusively on who employs whom. I could be a wizard of catheter ablation, but referring doctors who are employed by competing systems will not send me patients. They might sneak their mother in, but their patients go to the electrophysiologist employed by their employer. Speaking frankly, this stinks. Always has. Always will. A ‘good’ doctor should be rewarded with referrals and compensation. I wish it could be this way, but I am doubtful that it can. In many ways judging doctors is like judging teachers. It’s really hard to do from the outside. Here in the hospital and medical community, you come to know the good doctors. You see their work and then you see their patients. From the inside, thoughtfulness is easy to discern from shooting from the hip. From the outside, though, judging doctors entails looking at many competing measures. For instance, good bedside manner does not equate to technical skills–and vice versa. Box-checking and guideline adherence–especially the latter–are far from useful quality measures. Even procedural outcomes are tough to judge, as...
Source: Dr John M - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs