People look for different qualities in doctors

We've long held that quality means different things to different people. A Harvard physician conducted a quick Twitter survey on "what makes a good doctor" and received over 200 responses. The top response category only garnered 18% of the total vote. Surprisingly, "competent/effective" only came in at 6%. It could be that most of the respondents gave their answer assuming a sufficient level of competency.

What's also interesting is that none of these response categories (e.g. "humble") are easy to measure. It's possible that there are some reasonable proxies for these attributes. Some might argue, for example, that being accepted into a prestigious residency program likely means that the person is intelligent. (Even supporters of this theory would agree that the converse is not true: that is, not all intelligent doctors were accepted into prestigious residency programs.) Others might argue that positive patient reviews often correlate with good bedside manners, which might encompass a number of the response categories (e.g. "empathetic," "good listener"). If you have ideas on how people can find good doctors, please let us know.