By Dr. Kent Sepkowitz in Slate:
About this time every year, doctors across New York City begin to cast a wary eye at local newsstands. When the bundle of New York magazine's "Best Doctors" issue drops onto the pavement, torture commences for the city's prim and laconic physician class. (Other cities get their chance at other times of year.) It's high school all over again, a life lived at the mercy of cruel arbiters of who is up and who is down. To their credit, I suppose, the compilers of the Best Doctors list define worthiness with more objectivity: They poll local doctors and ask whom they would refer a family member to. With this quasi-statistical information in hand, they go behind closed doors and construct the dreaded list.Technorati Tags: slate, medicine, new york magazine, best doctors
To my expert eye, every year the New York survey gets it about half right: Half of the selections are first-rate doctors, no doubt about it. Another 25 percent are people whom I don't know well (though I have my doubts), and 25 percent are certifiable duds—doctors who (hopefully) haven't seen a patient in years but have risen to the lofty realm of high society and semi-celebrityhood.
