AI tools increasingly summarise online medical reviews to help patients make decisions more quickly. While convenient, these summaries can sometimes mislead when applied to healthcare.
Unlike hotels or restaurants, medical care involves known risks, variable outcomes, and clinical uncertainty. AI summaries may highlight rare negative experiences or draw confident conclusions without explaining how representative those experiences actually are. Research has shown that online physician ratings often do not correlate well with objective measures of clinical quality¹.
This can distort risk perception and create unrealistic expectations, particularly around surgery. A negative outcome does not necessarily mean something went wrong, just as a perfect-sounding summary does not necessarily mean the evidence is strong.
Reviews and AI summaries are therefore best used as starting points, not final judgments. Patients are better served when they look for overall patterns and use reviews to guide questions, rather than relying on simplified conclusions.
Good medical decisions depend on context, evidence, and open discussion with a clinician — not automated summaries alone².
References
- Daskivich TJ, Houman J, Fuller G, Black JT, Kim HL, Spiegel B. Online physician ratings fail to predict actual performance on measures of quality, value, and peer review. Journal of Urology. 2018;199(6):1490–1497.
- Murphy GP, Awad MA, Osterberg EC, et al. Online physician reviews: Is there a place for them? Journal of Urology. 2019;201(6):980–985.
Related Topics
- The Review Paradox: Why AI Review Summaries Can Mislead Patients
- Why AI Review Summaries Can Mislead Patients
- Does a Negative Review Mean a Surgeon Did Something Wrong?
- Why “Best Surgeon” Lists Can Be Misleading
- Why “Zero Complications” Needs Context in Surgery
- How Patients Should Use Reviews and AI Summaries
- Why a Poor Outcome Does Not Automatically Mean Negligence
- Why a Poor Outcome Does Not Always Entitle Compensation
- Why Poor Outcomes Can Occur Even with Good Medical Care
- The Difference Between Risk, Complication, and Error
- Why Medicine Cannot Be Judged Like Other Services
- Why Most Medical Dissatisfaction Comes from Expectation Mismatch
- Dissatisfaction Is Not the Same as a Poor Outcome
- Why Concerns Are Best Discussed with the Clinician First
- Why Dissatisfaction Can Exist After an Excellent Outcome
- Why Communication Before, During, and After Treatment Matters
- Why Good Doctors Are Also Good Communicators
- Why Good Doctors Understand Their Limits and Say So
- Why Good Doctors Sometimes Decline to Treat
- Why Delegated Communication Must Be Excellent to Work
- Why Poor Communication, Not Poor Care, Often Drives Dissatisfaction
