As a young physician, there were few things I dreaded more than public and online reviews. Entering the medical field as a newly minted attending, I quickly learned that reviews — both the good and the bad — could haunt a clinician’s professional life. Early on, I worked in a large corporate practice where patient reviews were published regularly, not only as part of the company’s transparency policy but also as a tool for oversight and scrutiny. These reviews were hung over our heads as if our entire career hung in the balance. At the time, this system made me anxious, defensive, and concerned, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.
The truth is, in corporate medicine, the scales are not balanced. You are an individual in a massive machine, where many parts of the patient experience are not within your control. Complaints tied to a physician’s name often had very little to do with direct patient-physician interaction. They reflected frustrations about the long wait times, office staff who might not share the same dedication or sense of urgency, and the corporate policies that shaped the patient journey. For a physician trying to make an impact, being evaluated on things beyond your control feels not just unfair but disheartening. I felt as though I was constantly being compared to a restaurant: Was I worth the time for a patient, and did they like my service enough to return? If not, I could not defend myself and my corporation would not respond either. I did not understand how to navigate this landscape and did not have any mentoring on how to make sense of it.
The Challenge of Corporate Medicine
In corporate medicine, it is easy to feel powerless. The nature of these systems often isolates physicians from their patients. You are caught between your dedication to your patients and the workings of the corporate system around you. It is not that the reviews themselves are unfair, but the way they are used can feel punitive. Patient feedback was often reduced to numbers, star ratings, and generalized sentiments, making it easy to overlook the nuances and context of the patient’s visit. There was no support to stand out or set yourself apart from your peers.
What’s worse, many of the complaints I saw attached to my name had little to do with my role as a clinician. They reflected dissatisfaction with administrative processes — how long it took to schedule appointments, the tone of the front desk staff, or the fact that insurance didn’t cover certain treatments. These reviews weren’t just critiques of me as a doctor; they were critiques of an entire system in which I was just one piece of the larger entity.
But the emotional weight of these reviews was heavy. I remember poring over patient comments with a sense of dread, each one feeling like a personal indictment of my abilities. Even positive reviews were double-edged; they often came with some caveat: “Dr. Panico was great, but the office furniture was dirty and the waiting room was too crowded.” It was hard not to feel responsible for everything.
The Transition to My Own Practice
All of this changed when I opened my own practice. The day I took control of my practice was the day I took control of my reviews. Running my own practice allowed me to implement systems that reflected my values and allowed for better patient care. I now had the ability to design the experience patients had from the moment they walked through the door to the time they left. Suddenly, reviews became not a critique of a faceless corporation but a reflection of my leadership, my practice, and my vision for patient care.
This shift in control reframed how I viewed patient feedback. In my practice, reviews are no longer something I dread but something I look forward to. They help me understand what’s working and what needs improvement. Rather than seeing reviews as an obstacle, I now see them as a tool — one that gives me insights into areas of my practice that I might not otherwise have considered. Patient reviews offer an invaluable perspective into the experience I am offering. Patient reviews have also been the best advertisement for my skill set and a chance to highlight what is unique about my practice. I now ask patients to leave reviews because it helps other potential patients find my clinic. The more I ask, the more it becomes an opportunity to stand apart from my peers and competition in town.
A New Perspective on Reviews
It wasn’t an overnight transformation, but gradually, I learned to read my reviews with a different mindset. Instead of reading them with anxiety and fear of judgment, I started reading them with curiosity and openness. When patients commented on office bottlenecks or communication issues, it was an opportunity to ask myself, “How can I improve this?” If a patient was confused about their treatment plan, I saw it as a chance to refine my communication techniques, to slow down, or to find new ways of explaining complex medical concepts. When a review praised our efficiency or the personal touch they felt during their visit, it was validation that we were doing something right. Having my own practice is about the customer experience and I understand this now. With patience and a little help from mentors, I now have a much healthier approach to managing online reviews and look forward to what my patients have to say.
This new approach allowed me to not just improve my practice but to better connect with my patients. It encouraged a culture of continuous improvement. Staff meetings began to include discussions about reviews — not in a punitive way, but as a team-oriented brainstorming session. We would ask, “What could we have done differently to make this experience better?” Suddenly, the same feedback that once felt overwhelming became actionable. This approach has been essential, but looking back, I did in fact take some of these ideas from Will Guidara’s book “Unreasonable Hospitality,” in which he tells his story about building Eleven Madison Park into the best restaurant in the world. I began to emulate hospitality with the mindset of a restaurateur and deliver results to my patients in a way that I had not explored before. I was now striving to be like an amazing restaurant on Yelp where I had once abhorred the very idea.
Compassion for Myself and My Team
Perhaps one of the most important things I’ve learned through this process is how to extend compassion to myself. In my earlier years, I took every negative comment as a personal failure, as if one unhappy patient meant that I wasn’t living up to the standards I’d set for myself as a physician. But that kind of thinking is unsustainable. The reality is, no matter how hard we try, we cannot please every single patient. Sometimes patients have expectations that simply cannot be met, or their frustrations stem from external factors beyond anyone’s control.
This realization helped me to adopt a healthier perspective: Perfection is not the goal; progress is. What matters is that we are committed to learning and improving with each experience. Reviews are snapshots of one moment in time, and they can help us recognize patterns or areas for growth, but they do not define us. They should not be internalized as an ultimate judgment of our worth as physicians or as people. Yet, we can take the criticism to refine our skills and the service we offer. After all, I wanted to have a practice where my patients would return happy and look forward to their experience and progress and be unashamed to share that experience publicly.
I’ve also learned to extend that same compassion to my staff. In a high-pressure environment like medicine, it’s easy to point fingers when something goes wrong, but it’s much more productive to work together to find solutions. Empowering my team to learn from reviews, rather than feel defeated by them, has created a culture of shared responsibility and pride in our work.
Turning Dread Into Opportunity
Today, I actively seek out patient reviews, not because I want validation but because I want to learn and grow. What used to feel like a judgment now feels like a tool for self-improvement. I ask for feedback not only to enhance the patient experience but to continue my journey of professional development. I want to highlight what I am good at so that more patients who need my services will be inclined to schedule an appointment. What better way to do that than a patient giving a recommendation! The shift in how I view these reviews — from something that once filled me with dread to something I now welcome — has been transformative.
In the end, the way we approach feedback reflects the way we approach growth. No physician is going to be the best fit for every patient, and no practice runs flawlessly 100% of the time. But when we embrace feedback with humility and compassion, we give ourselves the opportunity to become better versions of ourselves — not just for our patients, but for ourselves as well. The most powerful thing we can do as physicians is to keep learning, keep growing, and keep striving for excellence — one patient review at a time.
What have you learned from patient reviews? Share in the comments.
Dr. Brittany Panico is a rheumatologist in Phoenix, AZ. She is a wife and mother of three awesome boys and enjoys hiking, being outdoors, traveling, and reading. She posts on @AZRheumDoc on Instagram and Brittany Panico, DO, on LinkedIn. Dr. Panico was a 2023–2024 Doximity Op-Med Fellow and continues as a 2024–2025 Doximity Op-Med Fellow.
Image by akindo / Gettyimages
