Dear XXX Dermatology,
Please stop exploiting your “volunteers.” It's disconcerting to know that you yell at them, enable a culture of belittlement and fear around the office, and don't pay them a single dime for their hard work.
The fact that you could be so verbally abusive to intelligent and well-meaning students who volunteer their time for your practice speaks volumes about your character. Disrespecting unpaid volunteers and treating them with contempt on a daily basis is cruel and shameful. Instead of appreciating their unpaid contributions and being the positive role model they hoped you would be, you continue to disappoint and let them down.
Moreover, please stop faking reviews on Yelp. These reviews are misleading patients on serious matters related to their health. Instead of spending so much time and effort faking reviews you should focus instead on running an honest business devoid of exploitation.
I urge you to please stop taking advantage of UCLA premed students and adopt the following changes to your practice.
1. Pay your volunteers minimum wage. Your for-profit business along with the non-educational nature of the work performed puts the “volunteer” designation of these students into question. It appears that you are assigning them non-educational work, which is akin to unpaid, free labor. This is illegal.
2. Stop verbally abusing your volunteers and enabling others to do the same. Student volunteers deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. To treat them with passive aggressiveness, snark, belittlement or other verbal abuse is indicative of an unprofessional and hostile work culture that is unbefitting of a medical practice.
3. Reconsider the absence of training and supervision in your office. If the accounts of how you enable volunteers to carelessly handle confidential patient files are true, then realize that this is a serious HIPPA violation. You must respect the privacy of your patients and not implicate your volunteers by having them perform unlawful activities. It is your duty to provide the necessary training, and it appears that you have failed to do even the bare minimum.
4. Stop upselling your own personal skincare line to patients. Several reviews on Yelp report that you push your overpriced, underwhelming products onto your patients while discouraging them from purchasing less expensive (and more effective) alternatives. This is unethical and undignified behavior for a physician.
5. Stop faking reviews on Yelp. It is concerning and embarrassing that you continue to solicit fake reviews despite coverage of your deceitful practice on NPR this year. This behavior is not only against Yelp's policies, but illegal according to FTC rules. As a licensed physician, it is a violation of ethics and a potential harm to patients who choose your practice based on reviews and arrive at your office with false expectations of quality care.
Persistence of a hostile and exploitative work environment will result in me contacting every news station and newspaper in Los Angeles and letting them know about your practice. The choice is yours to do better. And I hope you do the right thing.
Sincerely,
XXX