Patients have mixed views of Zygmunt Dobrowolski, a urologist in Cracow, Poland. To one, he overcharges and thinks only of the money. To another, recovering from “girl frolics”, he is “very professional and witty”. His 17 reviews garner him a lowly two stars out of five. That is a rating which, whether he knows it or not, is likely to have had a big impact on his wallet already.

Across Europe, a surprisingly large number of similar review sites have sprung up. The most direct are those in Eastern Europe and Germany, where patients (anonymously) are quite prepared to pass judgement on the professional competence of their medical advisers. In Poland, for instance, the site www.znanylekarz.pl claims to have more than 300,000 reviews of 90,000 doctors. Many prominent physicians have 20-50 reviews – enough to give many readers a lot of confidence that the consensus is meaningful. Note that the same company has set up similar sites in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

West Europeans are rather more reserved. The British are asked to rate almost every institution of the NHS, but the dominant system, NHS Choices (which has 35 reviews of my local hospital), does not allow the user to rate individual doctors. This doesn’t stop some blunt opinions being expressed. My colleague Jonathan had his opinion of his GP practice confirmed by the four negative reviews – one of which contained the ultimate British insult: “I would not take my dog there”. But such forthrightness is rare. Most GP practices are rated on how long you have to wait, how polite the receptionist is, etc. There are, however, some harrowing accounts of problems in hospitals. A review of the Whittington hospital said: “Dare you ever complain then you will feel the wrath of the Consultant and his team.”

Academic Samantha Adams at Erasmus University in the Netherlands reckons such sites are likely to start changing behaviour in healthcare services. She points to academic studies showing that Tripadvisor has done just this for hotels.

Changes are already on the way. Doctors and institutions are starting to respond to negative reviews with apologies, explanations and feverish attempts to get the patient to come forwards. Note that many NHS hospitals in the UK have already appointed so-called Heads of Patient Experience. No fewer than 40 already have set up LinkedIn profiles. Their annual conference would be fascinating.

Forget patient choice. Welcome to the world of patient reviews.