A great doctor’s bio starts with a great understanding of what the patients are looking for. Sometimes it can be tricky to write a good one. This guide will help you nail the basics of writing up an effective doctor’s bio that can be included in the medical center’s website, newsletters, or in any other publications.
A doctor’s bio on a medical center website is a very important piece of information. It’s a little introduction. The first impression. It’s a blurb about the doctor that describes who they are and what they do. And this piece of information can be the deciding factor for that prospective patient.
Why do you need a doctor’s bio?
Here are some of the reasons why a good bio can be useful:
- It is useful information who are on the hunt for a personal GP.
- A doctor’s ‘special interest’ can also be useful to someone with a more ‘specific health problem’. For example, if you have a new mole you are concerned about, finding a doctor with a special interest in ‘Skin Cancer’ can be useful and save your time and the doctors’ time.
- A good doctor’s bio with the right keywords can help with SEO (search engine optimisation)
- The online doctor’s bio can be the deal breaker once the patients have researched the location, accessibility, pricing and opening hours of the medical centre
So we now know why a good bio is pretty important for a medical center website… it’s time to put ourselves in the patients’ shoes. Let’s break down WHAT should be included in a doctor’s bio.
A doctor’s bio should include:
- Your name with title
- Qualifications & credentials
- Current position
- 1-2 sentences about your career and accomplishments
- Special interests
- Languages
- Personal information such as hobbies (optional)
Quick Tip
Decide on uniformity – come up with a simple template or format across all doctors to ensure consistency. Is it going to be “Special interests” or “Special Interests”? Is there going to be a semi-colon? Decide on the small things now so you don’t have to go back and adjust them all later.
Include a Photo
A professional and inviting photo will set a strong impression. An ideal photo is one that captures the doctor’s warmth and character. It will also humanize all the bio text that the reader is about to absorb. A good photo is clear, of good quality, and has good background and lighting – it is recommended a professional photographer is hired for this step! Also, ensure the photo is no bigger than 500kb so it doesn’t slow down the website’s load speed.
Quick Tip
Include alt text for images and try to have the same feel across all the photos within one medical centre.
Start with Qualifications and Credentials
The first thing we want to clear up with the potential searcher is – what qualifications do they have? It’s important to mention these to establish the doctors’ experience. To most people, ‘MBBS’ or ‘RACGP’ may just be industry jargon, but to some searchers, these extra qualifications could help with their research and their doctor search.
Add in Your Current Title
A good bio will always include your current title or position. You can add your title ‘General Practitioner’ or ‘Physiotherapist’ just before or after your qualifications to establish and showcase your expertise.
Include a Short Description in Third Person
Write a sentence or two about the doctors’ career or accomplishments in third person. This helps the bio sound objective.
E.g. “Dr Lee has over 14 years’ experience as a GP.” or “Dr Yazdani has been practising…”
Quick Tip
If you do mention how many years, make sure you write “over X years” so you don’t have to update this information every year
List the Doctor’s Special Interests
In bullet points, mention all the special interests the doctors may have. This is helpful when the patient has a specific search or a particular medical problem. It can even help with the doctors’ job satisfaction or career evolution of the GP.
Some special interests that can be listed include:
- Academic general practice
- Aged care and nursing homes
- Chronic disease (eg. diabetes)
- Counselling
- Paediatrics
- Palliative care
- Refugee health
- Sexual health
- Women’s health
Quick Tip
Use bullet points where possible as this will break up blocks of text and help with the readability of the text.
List Languages Spoken
Adding the languages spoken can help patients where English isn’t their first language. Again, you can list them using bullet points.
Here’s an example:
Languages:
- Greek
- Italian
Proofread!
Make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors. This is a professional piece of writing about the doctor on the internet so it’s a good idea to make sure it’s flawlessly written. Read it over and over again – you will always find something to fix! It’s also a good idea to have someone else read it and get feedback.
Example:
Dr. Amanda Li
MBBS, RACGP
Dr. Li has over 14 years’ experience as a GP.
Special Interests:
- Chronic Disease
- Women’s Health
- Minor Surgery
- Paediatrics
Languages:
- Mandarin
- Cantonese
How to Collect Doctor’s Information Efficiently
Doctors are working on tight schedules. We can assure you that getting their bio written is definitely not on the top of their to-do list! There are many ways to collect information efficiently. Here are some ways to get it done hassle-free and effectively.
- Create a shared spreadsheet. You can use a Googlesheet and send the shareable link around to the doctors (they don’t need a gmail account to edit the sheet if you share the link openly)
- Create an online form/survey that the doctors can fill out. You can use Google Forms for this. We created a free example here that you can use. These forms are great because the responses can be exported into an excel sheet that can be optimised for efficient content upload!
- Make sure you give them both enough time to fill it out and a clear deadline on when it is due so they are accountable to get it done
- Send kindly worded email reminders when close to the deadline
And we’re done!
Follow these steps to create an effective doctor’s bio that is not only easy to read but also filled with relevant information. Once a template is created for the doctors to work off, the process of writing a bio can be simplified and done efficiently.
More and more patients are searching online to find their GP and that little bit of effort will definitely go a long way in helping the patient find what they are looking for.
