How important is marketing yourself in Psychiatry? Considering changing my name

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Firkin

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I'm MS4, soon to apply to psychiatry residencies, and I've been considering this question for a very practical reason: my name is unmarketable. It's a name that is strongly associated with something else. Think "Forrest Gump" or "Robin Hood" or "Emerald Green". If you search my name, you find 30 pages of results about something other than me, even if you add my town and state. I don't know at this point whether I will end up working in private practice, inpatient, etc. I'm frankly considering changing/altering my name to something that will make it easier to find me: Emerald Greenstone, if you will. So I was just wondering, since I think it will be less of a hassle to change my name now, before I get my diploma and apply to residency: how important is it in psychiatry to be found using a Google search?
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If your name is Michael Rauch or Betty Crocker, patients will find you by googling "Dr. Rauch" or "Dr. Crocker" - if they even google your name. Pick a company name that people will be googling like "ColorLocation Psychiatry" or something. The website will come up and your name will be in the website.

If that even matters. It seems that in my area psychiatrists don't market online and do just fine.
 
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Direct from a marketing/advertising professional (my wife): it's not really possible to tell if this will be a problem 4-5 years from now as SEO algorithms change somewhat frequently and may be completely different by then. It's also difficult to tell because the attached terms in the search (psychiatrist, Dr., MD/DO, etc) which will be used in 4-5 years wouldn't be attached to you in any way now. So once you're a psychiatrist you name may appear high on searches once those apply but you have no way of knowing this now.

From a professional/psychiatrist perspective, this is a good thing imo. Unless I was working in a PP and wanted patients to search me to start seeing me, I don't want people finding me online. It's both a privacy and safety thing. As a med student, the less PDs and others see your social media or any other accounts before applications the better. I've never heard of an applicant's name being googled helping them get into a residency, but I've heard of a few examples where it ended up causing problems. Stay unremarkable, most people that stick out in med school or residency do so for the wrong reasons.
 
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If you really are hard to search for you will be very grateful because it will be harder for pts to stalk you! This is a good problem to have.
 
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Stagg737 said:
From a professional/psychiatrist perspective, this is a good thing imo. Unless I was working in a PP and wanted patients to search me to start seeing me, I don't want people finding me online. It's both a privacy and safety thing. As a med student, the less PDs and others see your social media or any other accounts before applications the better. I've never heard of an applicant's name being googled helping them get into a residency, but I've heard of a few examples where it ended up causing problems. Stay unremarkable, most people that stick out in med school or residency do so for the wrong reasons.
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This has been my exact experience until now. Very happy that nobody could find info on me back when I was applying to med school or now. So you're right: there are definitely two sides to this coin. Making it difficult for patients to find my personal info seems like a win. I'm glad I posted because I will just relax!
 
It's a good question. I've been considering changing my last name to Xanax for marketing purposes.
 
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Not important. You don't even know what you're going to do in the future yet in terms of practice. Your priorities might change. Changing your name is a huge headache. You have to get a new social security, driver's license, passport, credit cards, etc.

Google Search is only going to be one source of referrals for you and it's not even a great source of referrals. There are many other ways to be found other than a Google search. If you're changing your name only because of this, it would be a waste. Now if you were getting married or another important reason for you, that would be a different consideration.
 
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jbomba said:
It's a good question. I've been considering changing my last name to Xanax for marketing purposes.
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Dr. Xanax and name your practice "Xanax Express", that way they know they can get their benzos hassle-free.

Make 'Xanax' vertical and let the second x and the x in 'express' overlap. Make sure there's some kind of picture of a woman hugging a cat in the negative space so they know you'll write letters for emotional support animals as well.
 
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Firkin said:
I'm MS4, soon to apply to psychiatry residencies, and I've been considering this question for a very practical reason: my name is unmarketable. It's a name that is strongly associated with something else. Think "Forrest Gump" or "Robin Hood" or "Emerald Green". If you search my name, you find 30 pages of results about something other than me, even if you add my town and state. I don't know at this point whether I will end up working in private practice, inpatient, etc. I'm frankly considering changing/altering my name to something that will make it easier to find me: Emerald Greenstone, if you will. So I was just wondering, since I think it will be less of a hassle to change my name now, before I get my diploma and apply to residency: how important is it in psychiatry to be found using a Google search?
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I'm in private practice and I actively pay for services to remove my name and data from the Internet.
 
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Assuming your name is not the result of a married name, have you thought about asking your parents why they chose a name with a strong association of whatever you're talking about? On the other hand, there are some unfortunate last names that elicit snickers when spoken aloud, but are highly appropriate for certain specialties such as urology. In which case, let your name guide your specialty path.

splik said:
If you really are hard to search for you will be very grateful because it will be harder for pts to stalk you! This is a good problem to have.
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Dr. Sarah Connor agrees.

jbomba said:
It's a good question. I've been considering changing my last name to Xanax for marketing purposes.
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Don't bother. Just adverstise yourself as a psychiatrist accepting new patients, and you'll have more than enough Xanaxers than you can shake a stick at.
 
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Just a side thing, always bugged me that it seems like people subconsciously assume your gender if your last name happens to be a fairly common first name that is usually binary, and if it doesn't match your gender.... I have such a last name.

I had a friend in residency named Dr. Curtis, and she agreed with me, when you walk into the room it's like people expected you to be a man if they only were told Dr. Curtis would be in to see you. And not just because of biases about women being doctors in general.

A man in residency named Dr. Cassidy agreed.

It's a minor point, but end of the day I didn't mind it because I feel like my title and manly last name conferred strength.

Anyway studies have been done on names and biases, and suggest it's a real phenomenon (names and biases, not necessarily and specifically my pet theory here).
 
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Anyway most of these things you can rise above in any case and it doesn't end up being a big deal.

Even if you are a urologist named Dr. Penix.
 
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Crayola227 said:
Just a side thing, always bugged me that it seems like people subconsciously assume your gender if your last name happens to be a fairly common first name that is usually binary, and if it doesn't match your gender.... I have such a last name.

I had a friend in residency named Dr. Curtis, and she agreed with me, when you walk into the room it's like people expected you to be a man if they only were told Dr. Curtis would be in to see you. And not just because of biases about women being doctors in general.

A man in residency named Dr. Cassidy agreed.

It's a minor point, but end of the day I didn't mind it because I feel like my title and manly last name conferred strength.

Anyway studies have been done on names and biases, and suggest it's a real phenomenon (names and biases, not necessarily and specifically my pet theory here).
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Being human, it is extremely difficult to not have some automatic thoughts when hearing a name. Thoughts on gender is just the tip of the iceberg. As meeting a psychiatrist is often perceived as stressful, our minds will start ruminating on the experience and filling in blanks. I’d be more surprised if patients held on to this inaccurate thought rather than Google search a photo. It would be a very uneducated bias.

In the internet age, it isn’t hard to learn more about a future physician and find a photo. A much more common issue is selecting a physician by aesthetic appeal alone. Whether this is a bias, attraction, connection or whatever, patients will actively seek you based on your photo much more so than your name. This week, I had a hetero male choose to see me over another same race male merely because my photo made him feel more comfortable than my competition’s photo.

I’ve also asked patients why they chose their past psychiatrist if they are switching. For a particular physician, a common answer is “attractiveness”.

With name alone, Google search engines are smart enough to help potential patients find you regardless of what your name is. If you really want to do something significant to increase patient acquisition, professional photos and even plastic surgery would be more effective than changing your name.
 
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Changing your name is quite a pain since you have to change your SS card, birth certificate, driver's license, and then everything medical once you have all that as well as your insurance etc etc.

I would do it if you feel strongly about it, but I think it's a bit of overkill just for search engine optimization. You might make a little more money if you choose a white name and are not white yourself (had a colleague who actually changed his name for this reason from a very classic East Asian name to a classic American name for the purposes of better marketability), only you can decide if you would want to do that.
 
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TexasPhysician said:
Being human, it is extremely difficult to not have some automatic thoughts when hearing a name. Thoughts on gender is just the tip of the iceberg. As meeting a psychiatrist is often perceived as stressful, our minds will start ruminating on the experience and filling in blanks. I’d be more surprised if patients held on to this inaccurate thought rather than Google search a photo. It would be a very uneducated bias.

In the internet age, it isn’t hard to learn more about a future physician and find a photo. A much more common issue is selecting a physician by aesthetic appeal alone. Whether this is a bias, attraction, connection or whatever, patients will actively seek you based on your photo much more so than your name. This week, I had a hetero male choose to see me over another same race male merely because my photo made him feel more comfortable than my competition’s photo.

I’ve also asked patients why they chose their past psychiatrist if they are switching. For a particular physician, a common answer is “attractiveness”.

With name alone, Google search engines are smart enough to help potential patients find you regardless of what your name is. If you really want to do something significant to increase patient acquisition, professional photos and even plastic surgery would be more effective than changing your name.
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I agree--professional photos, pick a good/intuitive company name (as others have mentioned), and have a nice looking website. Your name being hard to Google, as has also been mentioned, isn't necessarily a bad thing.
 
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Meanwhile, I created several random websites/blogs with my real name and then seeded them to reddit/digg to get google to pick them up before med school applications. Turns out having the only instance of your name makes things that are neutral to most but potentially negative to adcoms in certain parts of the country (involvement in political student club) easy to find. It worked btw and pushed those results into the 2nd page.
 
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It's also probably worth noting that search will look pretty different in the coming years due to LLMs/AI and that will be a whole new ballgame to SEO.
 
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I wish I was harder to find sometimes. No one else has my name and it results in people tracking down my personal information with ease. Your patients generally won't be looking up your first name, they'll be looking for Dr. Xname Location Specialty so you should be plenty findable, while also burying any personal information. Start a private practice with a strong brand name and you can sidestep worries about your own name.
 
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Mad Jack said:
I wish I was harder to find sometimes. No one else has my name and it results in people tracking down my personal information with ease. Your patients generally won't be looking up your first name, they'll be looking for Dr. Xame Location Specialty so you should be plenty findable, while also burying any personal information. Start a private practice with a strong brand name and you can sidestep worries about your own name.
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Same. My family name means a lot to me and I would never change it, but there are times I wouldn't mind being one of the zillion Smiths or Joneses buried on page fifty three of search results.
 
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While my name is not common, I share the same exact name as a seemingly high-profile urologist in California. I'd love to meet up with him one day and hear his best dick jokes.
 
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Marketing has the potential to overload a practice. I have never met a psychiatrist that does not have a wait list.
 
PsyDr said:
Marketing has the potential to overload a practice. I have never met a psychiatrist that does not have a wait list.
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I don't have a waitlist, but I am full. Mostly because I don't believe in keeping one.
 
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There is a Michael Myers, MD who is a psychiatrist and apparently very successful lol. So, sometimes a cool name actually helps haha
 
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Depends. Does it sound potentially unprofessional? I've heard of a guy with a last name like $#!teloard or something changing his name at 18. Also knew a guy named S1utter...might be a good idea to get that changed. If you're literally John Smith or something like that, on the other hand...not too sure about that.
 
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Just put -stein on the end so they think you’re Jewish, problem solved
 
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