My patients judge me before they see me.  They judge me from the moment I extend my hand.  They judge me when I talk to them on the phone.  Or when I fail to talk to them on the phone right when I should.  At the coffee shop, in the lobby, at the Y, at stop lights, during dialog after an endoscopy and on Twitter I’m judged.

I’m a provider with ImproveCareNow.  My statistics are crunched, pushed, analyzed, graphed, pointed at and questioned.  How do my rates of crohn’s disease remission match up?  The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners publishes my name when I don’t meet a minimum standard.  Public judgment of quality.

Everyday I am judged.  And for good reason.  Trusting the welfare of your child to another individual is a huge step.  The parents who seek my help have every right to be very critical.  It’s the responsibility a parent has to their child.

Some physicians don’t want to be judged.  ‘It’s my right to be free. I’ve got to be me,’ they say.  ‘Don’t judge me on a picture or a Tweet.’  The trend toward transparency coupled with the unbridled capacity to publish has created a digital libertarian sentiment among some of us.  We want it all ways.

But, right or wrong, as a physician you are judged.  Hopefully in the context of our modern communities we will be judged fairly.