Is YOUR doctor any good?

I'm thinking of getting a pain pump -- just thinking. My doctor
is growing a little intolerant of my not committing myself to this
procedure.
I don't like to ask him "Just how many pain pumps have you installed
and what was the outcome of each?" (He'd think I didn't trust him)
We NEED to know about our doctors. They know ALL about us. Our
life is in their hands.
MY QUESTION: How does one go about getting information about
their doctor? Maybe we just trust?
I've moved to a new town - a big town. I only have one recomendation
about this doctor.
Pamela Neckpain wonders if we need to sharpen up our ESP or what?

I don't know if we can mention the sites here or not, but there are increasing numbers of places where we, as consumers, can go to rate our doctors. One is ratemds.com (a moderator can edit that if it violates the rules), and there are others emerging. Thing is not a lot of people have entered data, so your doctor may not be mentioned, and there may tend to be information entered on people who either thought the doc was great or horrible. Still, I think these are places for us to really start becoming more empowered consumers. Now if you go to the sites, be sure to look at the actual ratings, not just forums or messages boards and such. I read an article at the CNN website that said the best way is to check several of these sites and see if your doctor gets similar ratings. No ratings isn't bad; just means no one has entered the docs name yet - but we could each enter our docs and if we did, and doctors started to recognize that they may actually loose patients by providing poor care or having staff who are disrespectful. think of how great that would be.

PaLady

Hi, Dj,
Welcome to the forum. Thanks for adding that info. And on the radio today I heard that angie's list is adding a section for doctors. You know, the more of these sites that spring up - and that have constructive feedback (not just raving praise or rants) we can use or add, the more empowered we become.

PaLady