The PMD Critical List: Are Yelp Reviews Good for Doctors?

As more and more people use online crowd-sourced reviews to make purchasing decisions, some experts are asking whether such sites have a role in making healthcare decisions. That story tops this week’s PMD Critical List. Also on the list: a look at physicians’ mixed feelings about Medicare, and a candid look at medical residents learning to perform abortion at a time of heightened controversy.

• Yelp Reviews: Good for Doctors? (NPR.org)

With health professionals now being scored by Yelp (a website that publishes crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses), physicians can learn valuable lessons. “On the whole people are happy with doctors, but when they weren't, they let it be known.”

• Nearly Half of UK Doctors Reject Their Profession (Mirror Online)

In what NHS officials are calling a crisis, 44% of British physicians said they wouldn’t recommend their profession to others as a career. The doctors’ biggest worries are future National Health Service funding and feeling permanently under pressure.

• Medicare & Physicians: A Complicated Relationship (Philly.com)

A good essay from an American College of Physicians official on Medicare’s 50^th anniversary. “Most physicians look at Medicare with complicated emotions: appreciation for the good it has done for their patients and them, yet concern that it has begat greater government intervention in the patient-physician relationship.”

• Pioneer of PET Scan Dies at 93 (The Washington Post)

Dr. Louis Sokoloff, who developed the PET scan technique for measuring human brain function and diagnosing disorders, has passed away. The Philadelphia-born physician also led the brain metabolism lab at the National Institute of Mental Health.

• Top Doctors Approve of Obamacare (Washington Examiner)

“Some high-ranking physicians are starting to approve of Obamacare, but not by much, according to a new poll. About 55% of nearly 2,400 physician leaders agreed that the law had "more good than bad" in it. The American Association for Physician Leadership did the poll.

• Doctors Paid to Testify that Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer (Vocativ.com)

A new Stanford University study finds six physicians “routinely testified on behalf of the tobacco industry… helping make the case that smoking was not a major cause of specific cases of head and neck cancer.” They did so—and received monetary compensation—despite the fact that their testimony contradicted their professional group’s official stance.

• 17 Vacation Habits of Highly Effective People (Inc.)

Some studies show that even vacations aren’t putting a dent in professional burnout among physicians. It might be because they don’t know how to do it properly. Here’s “a step-by-step guide to taking time off” from successful people.

• Doctors Must Ditch White Lab Coats (Vocativ.com)

Calling doctor’s white lab coats “mere symbolism and wearing them does not itself confer status or professionalism,” a British researcher says American medicine needs to abandon sentiment and get rid of the garments. Just as the UK did in 2007.

• 5 Fast Facts on Dr. Ben Carson’s Net Worth (Heavy.com)

He was one of two physicians (the other was Dr. Rand Paul) to participate in the first 2016 Republican presidential debate last week. Here are some interesting facts on his wealth. The retired neurosurgeon and top-selling author among candidates is worth about $10 million.

• For Doctors-to-Be: Abortions or Not? (Yahoo! Health)

With the matter of abortion raging stronger than ever (Planned Parenthood videos, presidential debates), here are some “brutally honest essays from medical residents struggling with their decisions to perform abortions.”