Who should write the content on a physician’s website?

Why the words should be yours

Patients read a surgeon’s website before they meet the surgeon. If the page says something different from what you say in the exam room, the patient notices, and the visit starts with a correction. Content written by someone who has never seen your patients tends to describe the condition in general terms and leave out the explanation you give every day.

Your name is on every page, and you are responsible for every clinical statement on it. That responsibility does not move to whoever typed the words.

How a draft gets written in your voice

• Your materials. Patient handouts, consent forms and anything you already give out in clinic. Paper scans are fine.
• A structured interview. An hour or two in which you explain each condition and operation the way you explain it to patients.
• Writing samples. Anything that sounds like you: a letter, a blog post, a talk.
• Sources. Each clinical statement is tied to your specialty society’s guidance or to published evidence before you see the draft.

You then get a complete draft site to read, not an outline.

What your part takes

Most of the calendar between intake and launch is your review, not the build. In practice that means a couple of hours at night with a Word document open beside the draft site, making comments. Nothing clinical goes live until you have read it and signed off.

Every specialty

You know your society’s guidelines better than any builder. The reviewer’s job is to check that each statement points to one, mark what a patient would misread, and note what you say in clinic that the page leaves out. RC’s founder is a trauma and acute care surgeon who works with every specialty in the hospital, which is why the one-page review is open to all of them.

What about AI-written content?

An AI tool can speed up a first draft. A draft is not verified content. Whoever produces the words, the physician reads and approves every clinical statement before it is published, and each statement still needs a source a colleague could check.

Questions physicians ask

Do I have to write it myself?

No. The draft is written from your materials and an interview in your voice. Your part is to read it, correct it and approve it.

Who is responsible for the clinical content?

You are, and you approve it. Every clinical statement is tied to a published source, and nothing goes live until you have read the page and signed off.