At this ripe point in my career, many new patients come referred by Dr. Google. “I checked the Internet,” they say. “You have great reviews.”
I don’t read my reviews. The abusive ones make me ill. People must filter out the bile and focus on the positives.
Laymen have little sense of how good the professionals they consult really are. Unless I’m audited and lose, how would I know how skillful my accountant is? My urologist is a nice man. How good is he at prostate surgery? I hope not to find out. Nevertheless, reviews are here to stay, as are physician evaluations by insurers and professional agencies.
Dr. Alan Rockoff
Some office days highlight the gap, really the chasm, between the truth of the professional matter and what makes patients decide to trust or mistrust us. Last Thursday was one of those days.
Marla brought in her daughter, aged 3 years. Zoe had a scaly rash and some red papules on her arms and legs.
“Did your pediatrician treat this?” I asked.
“No, I came right to you,” said Marla. “You diagnosed her with bedbugs when she was an infant. The pediatricians had no idea what was going on. I trust you.”
That is flattering, but if I were being fully honest, I would tell Marla:
• Bedbug bites are tricky to diagnose. I’ve missed my share.
• What helped me diagnose them in her daughter was that the pediatrician had already tried several remedies that hadn’t helped.
Even if I said these things, though – and why waste all that wonderful transference? – Marla would probably have said, “Maybe so, but you got it right, and I trust you.” Nothing succeeds like success.
The reverse, however, is also true: Nothing fails like failure.
Later the same day Brian brought in Luke, aged 6 years. Luke has severe atopic dermatitis. As usual, he was scratching up a storm. “I think it’s infected,” Brian said. “Shouldn’t he take antibiotics?”
I examined Luke and found subacute eczema. “I don’t think so,” I said. “This is what Luke’s eczema flares look like. Let’s treat him with a topical steroid cream and see how he does.”
“But he had staph last year,” said Brian.
“I recall,” I said, “but most of his outbreaks have not been infected, and it doesn’t look like staph now. Let’s treat it as we usually do and see what happens over the next week.”
Two weeks later Brian brought back Luke, still scratching. There were still no pustules or deeper inflammatory lesions. We started Luke on an antibiotic, and swabbed scratched areas. Two days later the culture grew staph. By the time I called Brian with the results, he had brought Luke to an emergency room. “He has abscesses,” he told me.
The next day the sensitivities were back, confirming staph. I called Brian, who had this to say: “He should have been on antibiotics 2 weeks ago. From now on, whenever he starts scratching, he should be started on them right away. I won’t be bringing him back to your practice. I don’t trust you. I trust the doctors in the ER more.”
Is it really a good idea to start every eczema patient on antibiotics? How about every eczema patient who once had staph? Based on my own clinical experience with both conditions, I would answer both questions in the negative. Others might disagree.
One thing is sure, though: Like most patients, Brian sees the situation not through the eyes of my experience but through his own case series, with an n of 1. But that 1 carries a lot of weight, because the 1 is Luke, his son. It is therefore clear – to him – that his son should be treated preemptively with antibiotics for every eczema flare.
At this point I might too, for Luke, but I will not get the chance. Once trust is gone, the clinical relationship is over. Sometimes it’s one strike and you’re out.
For her part, Marla sees things through her single case report as well, drawing the opposite conclusion: that my success earned me the trust her pediatrician lost.
The subtleties and nuances of such cases, which every clinician knows, are lost in the often black-and-white world of lay reviews and pay-for-performance algorithms. That’s clinical life.
Trust me.
Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years. Write to him at dermnews@frontlinemedcom.com.