…..In today’s Internet-driven world, people have never had an easier time making their thoughts and opinions known. This has resulted in patients reviewing their physicians online – leaving an ever-growing collection of testimonials, rants, and posts online that inform others about their personal experiences. While this is mostly great news for all other people, at times it can be problematic for medical practitioners, mostly due to the occurrence of “internet trolls” and other dishonest and irresponsible people whose sole purpose is to besmirch a good doctor’s name. But then there are also those reviews that are honest and can provide insight on how you can improve yourself or your practice (provided you know how to handle it). 

…..Following are five tips that will help you handle criticism like a true pro:

  1. Listen To Criticism With An Open Mind – If a patient takes time out to leave an honest review, there may be some important information within the review that might help improve the way you practice medicine. Keep your mind open and realize that you are not a perfect doctor or person – and approach the criticism with the intention of figuring out how to make yourself better. Always thank serious reviewers and make sure to let them know that their concerns have been read and what you will be doing to address them.
  1. Make Changes If Needed – If you realize that certain criticisms of you are true, then the best thing to do would be to alter your habits in an attempt to avoid making the same mistakes you were criticized for. Medicine is an industry in which it’s practitioners never stop learning – so it is inevitable that all doctors will have to reinvent themselves over and over again during the course of their careers. 
  1. Learn To Be Resilient To Criticism – Every doctor has dealt with both good and bad feedback, so don’t feel bad when you receive your share of criticism. Instead, think of it as vital experience that will help shape who you are as a medical professional. But, it will be hard to better yourself if you get deflated every time somebody honestly tells you what you did wrong, so just relax and take things in stride – every doctor makes mistakes and that includes you! 
  1. Connect With Criticizers Professionally & Offline – There may be times you feel like responding to criticism directly online – but honestly it is almost never a good idea to engage somebody in full view of everybody else. If it ends up in hostility, it may reflect badly not just on you as a medical professional, but on your staff and/or practice as well. The best way to respond to a review is to get in touch directly with the source of the review in private. Behave professionally and never lose your temper, and instead try to find out how you can serve them better.
  1. Never Take Things Personally – Patient interactions are important to doctors, so sometimes it’s difficult to not get emotional about an irate patient. But in any professional endeavor, it is considered extremely important to not take criticism personally. The sharing of how you can improve should be considered an opportunity to become better – after all that is the point of criticism in the first place. Furthermore, the possibilities of unfair reviews and attacks by trolls are always present, but these should just be deleted and ignored since they are dishonest anyway and do not contain any information useful to you or anybody else.

…..Interested in a life of public service as a physician? Contact TukkoMed today and find out how we can help you become a Qualified Medical Evaluator.

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