SP Clinc’s Review: The Line Between Warning and Defamation

April 20, 2012 - PRLog -- The line between medicine and business has been razor thin for a very, very long time.  Scores of people all over the world decided early on that they wanted to be doctors, and some of them, unfortunately, dreamed of becoming so not because of the help they could give others, but because of the power they could amass because of the prestige of the profession or the money they could make during their careers.  While these purely money- and power-motivated physicians (if they even get through medical school and residency) are relatively rare, they do exist and, unfortunately, those who specialize in cosmetic plastic surgery have a higher proportion of these kinds of doctors than any other medical discipline.  

“It's been said repeatedly on our site and many others that the process of deciding a proper plastic surgeon should be taken with a great deal of care and research,” said Dr.Sompob Sansiri, the lead plastic surgeon at SP Clinic.  

The internet is an invaluable tool for doing so me of this initial research, but it's also important to keep in mind that this resource is often used in nefarious ways and, as such, anyone looking to do research on a set of plastic surgeons should make sure to find multiple sources of information about them before making a decision.

Most people's research methods begin with a search on one of the major search engines.  That varies given the country in which you live:  the most popular search engines in the world can all be manipulated to a certain degree with a method called Search Engine Optimization, whereby a simple search query's rankings can be increased artificially.  The specifics of these methods are immaterial to this specific discussion, but suffice it to say that it's a very powerful, continually-used marketing method that can either be used honestly or dishonestly.  Given that certain medical practices (such as this one) often blur the line between commerce and service, some of the most cut-throat business methods-- deception included-- have been used to either increase one's own visibility on the web or decreased or defamed a competitor's.

There are very few precautions in place to bar misinformation from being distributed on the web, so the burden of verifying the truth of certain reviews about a given practice are placed solely on the prospective patient.  Luckily, there are a few key things to be mindful of that can verify the authenticity of a given review or series of statements:  when reading through reviews and testimonials of different doctors, ask yourself these questions:
How much repetition is there from testimonial to testimonial?  If you read fifteen reviews that all have the same two or three phrases within them, the posts are probably false.  A great many freelance writers have been hired over the course of the last decade to do re-writes and flood different review sites with the same sorts of reviews directed at their clients' competitors, and most of those writers were given a set of phrases to use within their reviews so that they appear in search engines.
How well is the review or article written?  Quite often, these same falsely posted articles are written in English by people who don't speak the language fluently, or are else so fully stuffed with awkward phrases that have no purpose other than to increase their visibility onto review websites.  Genuine articles and reviews tend to have a much more conversational, less visibly loaded style and voice than false ones.
Is there a trend in the types of user names given on a specific review type?  If you've found a physician with a series of bad reviews, all of which are written by users with similar names (i.e., “DrNakamoraisafake,” “Donttrustnakamora,” etc.)  chances are good that all of these reviews come from false sources.

Each qualified physician tends to be a member of one or more guilds that add to the credibility of their ability to perform certain procedures.  Each of these guilds and associations tend to have verifiable websites and phone numbers that can be contacted in the event that you might wish to check if the purported patient reviews you find don't ring true.  If you have concerns as to the veracity of claims on either side of a consumer-driven search for any of these physicians, you can always call one of these guilds for further assistance.