When the reviews stopped being about care and turned personal
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Over about three months the same individual left a series of escalating reviews that stopped being about care and became intensely personal, commenting on my appearance, my "cold attitude," and eventually including language that felt like veiled threats. The posts jumped from Healthgrades to a second platform.
In psychiatry the therapeutic relationship is the entire treatment, and I could not respond in any way without effectively confirming who this person likely was and breaching their confidentiality.
I started to dread opening my laptop in the evenings, and my own sleep suffered in a way I would have flagged immediately in a patient. For the first time in fifteen years of practice I found myself seriously calculating how many more years I could do this work.
I documented everything and consulted both my professional liability carrier and, quietly, a colleague who specializes in these situations. Their advice amounted to "keep records and do not engage," which is correct and also deeply unsatisfying when someone is publicly hostile to you month after month.