If you have read some of my Google reviews, you’ll see that some patients who come to see me leave feeling VERY VERY sad inside.
In this article, you can learn some tips and lessons on making sure your visit with me isn’t full of SAD SAD feelings.
The problem
Did you know that most people who walk into a surgeon’s office are NOT HAPPY? It’s true. They are usually dealing with misery and pain, and they want it to go away. So, I’m in very specialized profession whose customers are ALWAYS mad and upset or frustrated at a baseline.
Think of the opposite type of business – wedding planner – customers are ECSTATIC about life and their new marriage. Of course they have stress, but the whole reason they come to your business is because of a happy event.
The good news
The good news is that every surgeon I know is 100% invested in solving your problem FAST.
Surgeons do not waste time. They want to fix problems.
So in this sense, the patient and the surgeon have goals that line up perfectly. And for 90-95% of patients, this works really well.
Another secret: most surgeons consider you being happy a bonus – if your problem is fixed, but you think your surgeon is arrogant – he’s probably going to sleep just fine at night.
The bad news
When surgeons who have that one focus – solving the problem – start having conversations and interacting with patients, there can be a surprising amount of friction and difficulty.
Surgeons aren’t going to change.
They’re not suddenly going to become cuddly therapists that want to spend hours talking with you.
Some patients – it might be 5% or even less – just can’t have a good professional relationship with a surgeon.
How this article will help
In this article, I’ll outline some information you need to know about seeing a sub-specialized surgeon – this applies to me (because I’m writing this), but will apply to many or most surgeons out there, in most fields of specialized surgery.
I’ll try to explain how surgeons think and act and make decisions.
Google reviews
Our source material for inspiration will be the eternal supply of Google reviews left by my patients.
It’s actually illegal for me to discuss a specific patient’s medical condition or what happened in an office visit with anyone. So any patient of any doctor can leave a lying, hate-filled review of an office visit, and the doctor literally cannot respond to anything specific.
It’s like beating up a three year old.
Legally, the doctor is defenseless.
Don’t misunderstand me – I like reviews. I leave reviews for restaurants or whatever – I think it helps customers and patients. But the vast majority of patients leaving reviews for doctors are telling tales of HORRIBLE experiences. Usually the angriest, saddest patients are leaving the most reviews.
In one day, I see between 30 and 50 patients. This amounts to about 120-130 patients per week. I get about THREE online reviews per week, maybe TWO. Now, sure, half of my patients could be angry and sad and just don’t leave reviews, but I wouldn’t be a surgeon for long if that were true. The fact is that most people are satisfied with surgeon visits, but don’t take the time to leave a review online. I’ve had patients say, literally, “you saved my life – thank you so much”, and don’t leave a review when we hand them a comment card. Who knows why.
So Google reviews show a mixture of good and bad opinions, but the bad ones are REALLY bad! And from these bad experiences, we can learn a lot. Again – I’m not so naive to think that it’s impossible for a patient to hate my guts and think I’m Hitler. But what you see in the reviews is usually only about 10-20% of the full story.
So what we’ll attempt to do here is to use the reviews to inspire topics that will educate you BEFORE you come see me or another surgeon.
The first story
Coming soon…
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