Need to find a hotel in Starkville, Miss.? Find one with confidence at TripAdvisor.com, or any number of online websites.

Looking for lunch in Bethesda, Md.? Consult Washingtonian.com.

But if it's a cardiologist you seek, you're better off consulting your general practitioner, a relative or a friend.

"Choosing a physician is more complicated than choosing a good restaurant," said Nancy H. Nielsen, immediate past president of the American Medical Association. "Patients owe it to themselves to use the best available resources when making this important decision."

Web-savvy patients might be tempted to check out the myriad sites rating physicians, but for the present, say experts, don't. Many sites are well-intentioned but lack the response numbers to be accurate reflections. Others can be downright misleading.

Doctors and health-care professionals say it's best to take such ratings with a prescription-strength grain of salt.

"A lot of those ratings sites are useless for the evaluation of an individual physician," said Shaili Jain, who began a website (www.thebedsidemanner.com) in response to the dearth of constructive criticism found on the Internet.

"The need came because I realized that patients were increasingly going to the Internet for all sorts of things -- to read about a medical device, if I tell them about a certain condition or medication, they'll go read about that.

"Then I started to wonder: What else are they reading online?"

A 2009 Harris Poll estimates that 67 percent of American adults report looking for medical information online.

Dr. Jain, who is associated with Stanford University, decided to google her own name and found it on a few such sites. She didn't get any specific feedback, good or bad, from her exploration, but couldn't help but notice the scathing, anonymous attacks on other physicians.

So she began the bedside manner site, where positive feedback is encouraged and blogging, rather than just a numerical ratings system, is employed.

"I wanted to capture the useful aspects, as opposed to the vicious rant. Vicious rants just lead to defensive behavior, and we don't need any more defensiveness in the medical community," Dr. Jain said. "We need transparency."

In a Jan. 7 article for the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jain noted that "reading the [online ratings] reassures me that what patients want from their physicians is not all that different from what good physicians want to offer their patients. Patients are generally not unreasonable, high-maintenance consumers; they simply want doctors who care, will listen, and know what they're doing."

She said that some physicians are requesting patients not participate in online ratings for a variety of reasons.

"If you look at the narrative after visiting a number of these sites, you can see certain themes coming through," Dr. Jain said. "You realize anybody can go and rate anybody, you might be an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend and nobody is really going to know.

"[Those who leave comments] know there is no way of responding or writing back because we are bound by confidentiality laws. Once some bad ratings go up, it can do a lot of damage."

The types of physician ratings sites vary. Some, such as DrScore.com, were established by physicians and provide a forum for patient feedback. Others such as HeathGrades.com, will provide you with bare-bones information but will promise more in-depth information -- such as disciplinary history or sanctions against a particular physician -- for a price. In this case, $12.99.

A phone call or Web visit to your state medical board will generally yield the same information, for free, said Dr. Jain, who worries that pay sites might prey on confused patients.

Two years ago, WellPointe, a huge insurance company with health-care providers all over the country -- teamed with survey maven Zagat to establish online physician ratings. But this kind of endeavor yielded a slippery slope in the past: The state of New York had to admonish some health insurance companies that were boosting the ratings of physicians based on "cost containment."

In short, many doctors who ordered fewer tests for patients received higher recommendations from the insurers' websites.

"In other areas of the country, these flawed programs have helped no one and hurt many by causing confusion and apprehension," wrote Dr. Nielsen in a statement.

"One snowflake doesn't make a winter, and if one patient has a bad experience in the office -- he has to wait too long or something else happened that wouldn't be typical -- he could still give a bad rating," said Leo McCafferty, a Shadyside plastic surgeon and president-elect for the Allegheny County Medical Society. He also is a board member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and on the ethics committee for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

"Although I don't think there's anything wrong with ratings websites as long as there is some objectivity."

Steve Feldman, a dermatologist at Wake Forest University's school of medicine, said he started his site (www.drscore.com) about four years ago when he learned through standard patient surveys that although he was dispensing excellent health care, he was perceived by some patients as "uncaring."

"I learned how important it is to know what patients are thinking."

As more elderly patients become Web-savvy, Dr. McCafferty said, they also learn not to believe everything they read. "Consumers can use this as one piece of the puzzle ... but it shouldn't be the only piece of information."

Alan Meisel is founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Bioethics and Health Law. He noted that visitors to ratings sites should understand that in most cases, choosing a physician based on a handful of comments is a best-guess situation.

"One of the risks is that you could have a situation where there are pumped-up ratings, good or bad ... and the information could be misleading because even if a doctor has a good or bad rating, you don't know what it's based on," Mr. Meisel said.

Well, whom should patients trust?

"Patients can ask family and friends about their physicians. Getting information from someone you know is more reliable than from someone you don't," Dr. Nielsen said. "Patients can ask for a referral from a current physician, visit the AMA's DoctorFinder, check with local hospitals or contact the state medical society or medical board."

Just don't assume that "highly rated" doctor from the first website you visited is the way to go.

"This isn't a Zagat restaurant survey," Dr. Jain said. "It doesn't work that way."

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