Surveys of Dentists

The 'experts' in the business of Dentistry strongly suggest that dentists look at patient surveys that appear on the internet so that they can get a sense of what we are doing both right and wrong.  I am strongly suspicious of patient surveys because most patients just do not know what to look for in evaluating a dentist...Of course, if the dentists always hurts the patient, is always an hour late or the fillings either hurt or fall out, I think most patients ARE in a position to judge the quality of the dentist.
I might even agree that many patients can judge an acceptable from an unacceptable dentist.

What the overwhelming majority of patients cannot do is judge which dentists are pursuing EXCELLENCE and have a passion for their craft.

I was casually looking at the HEALTHGRADES website which provides a 10 question survey for patient evaluation and one patient had answered a survey about me and gave me an 'OUTSTANDING' rating...Then I went to other local dentists surveys who listed survey results and they too received 'OUTSTANDING' reviews...The problem is that I KNOW the work of these 'outstanding' dentists because I treat their patients and I know that they would not be on MY shortlist of dentists that I would select to treat me.

How can patients not know? Because people don't know that they do not know.

If a person has always driven a Toyota Corolla they are not in a position to judge automobiles because they they only know Toyota Corollas.  If you ask them if a Corolla is a good car, they will almost certainly respond that it is a very good car and point to the exceptional reliability. If you ask them whether their Corolla is as good as your BMW 5 Series, they would probably think that the cars are pretty equal.

They don't know what they don't know.

The bottom line is that surveys of most dentists are meaningless.