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Every year, a local magazine publishes its annual "Top Doc" issue. The rankings are based on voting conducted by local physicians.
I’ve been on the list several times over the years. I’m flattered, as anyone would be. But I always worry about patients who put too much faith in these things. I know many good doctors who have never been on the list, and I know some people on the list who are adequate at best.
A handful of people each year come in solely on the magazine’s referral. Most are chronic pain patients, who don’t come back after learning that I don’t have any miracle treatments that their previous doctors didn’t have. My casual sense of fashion also puts them off, as they seem to expect me to be wearing a three-piece suit – with a cape.
Ratings are tricky. Having other doctors do them is likely more reliable than asking patients, but still misses a key point of the doctor-patient relationship: chemistry. The bottom line is that some people click very well together and others don’t. This sort of thing is often hard to predict, and no matter how good a doctor you may be, if patients don’t like you, they probably won’t be back. They also may complain to their internist about you.
I once made it onto a similar list (in a now-defunct throwaway magazine) as the second-best doctor in Scottsdale. (I think the first was a pediatrician.) The rating wasn’t even broken down by specialty, so having a neurologist so high up was unusual. It was, as best I could tell, based on random phone calls made during daytime hours to houses in zip codes surrounding my office. I can only assume it was a remarkably skewed, non-scientific sample, and that many of my patients were home that day. I don\'t remember getting any referrals from that, and the magazine folded within a year.
The only thing I’d say is truly predictable is that after the annual "Top Doc" issue comes out, people call asking for my money: companies selling plaques or statues to commemorate the achievement, financial planners wanting to discuss my portfolio, and the occasional reporter wanting me to comment on a story. I turn them all away. I don’t even hang up my own diplomas, so I have no interest in more tchotchkes. I may not be a financial planner, but in this era I am reluctant to trust others with my money. And I hide from the general media.
In any profession, rating people is never easy. There are a lot of variables, and some things simply can’t be predicted. It’s flattering to be on the lists, but just like betting guides at a sports book, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Every year, a local magazine publishes its annual "Top Doc" issue. The rankings are based on voting conducted by local physicians.
I’ve been on the list several times over the years. I’m flattered, as anyone would be. But I always worry about patients who put too much faith in these things. I know many good doctors who have never been on the list, and I know some people on the list who are adequate at best.
A handful of people each year come in solely on the magazine’s referral. Most are chronic pain patients, who don’t come back after learning that I don’t have any miracle treatments that their previous doctors didn’t have. My casual sense of fashion also puts them off, as they seem to expect me to be wearing a three-piece suit – with a cape.
Ratings are tricky. Having other doctors do them is likely more reliable than asking patients, but still misses a key point of the doctor-patient relationship: chemistry. The bottom line is that some people click very well together and others don’t. This sort of thing is often hard to predict, and no matter how good a doctor you may be, if patients don’t like you, they probably won’t be back. They also may complain to their internist about you.
I once made it onto a similar list (in a now-defunct throwaway magazine) as the second-best doctor in Scottsdale. (I think the first was a pediatrician.) The rating wasn’t even broken down by specialty, so having a neurologist so high up was unusual. It was, as best I could tell, based on random phone calls made during daytime hours to houses in zip codes surrounding my office. I can only assume it was a remarkably skewed, non-scientific sample, and that many of my patients were home that day. I don\'t remember getting any referrals from that, and the magazine folded within a year.
The only thing I’d say is truly predictable is that after the annual "Top Doc" issue comes out, people call asking for my money: companies selling plaques or statues to commemorate the achievement, financial planners wanting to discuss my portfolio, and the occasional reporter wanting me to comment on a story. I turn them all away. I don’t even hang up my own diplomas, so I have no interest in more tchotchkes. I may not be a financial planner, but in this era I am reluctant to trust others with my money. And I hide from the general media.
In any profession, rating people is never easy. There are a lot of variables, and some things simply can’t be predicted. It’s flattering to be on the lists, but just like betting guides at a sports book, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Every year, a local magazine publishes its annual "Top Doc" issue. The rankings are based on voting conducted by local physicians.
I’ve been on the list several times over the years. I’m flattered, as anyone would be. But I always worry about patients who put too much faith in these things. I know many good doctors who have never been on the list, and I know some people on the list who are adequate at best.
A handful of people each year come in solely on the magazine’s referral. Most are chronic pain patients, who don’t come back after learning that I don’t have any miracle treatments that their previous doctors didn’t have. My casual sense of fashion also puts them off, as they seem to expect me to be wearing a three-piece suit – with a cape.
Ratings are tricky. Having other doctors do them is likely more reliable than asking patients, but still misses a key point of the doctor-patient relationship: chemistry. The bottom line is that some people click very well together and others don’t. This sort of thing is often hard to predict, and no matter how good a doctor you may be, if patients don’t like you, they probably won’t be back. They also may complain to their internist about you.
I once made it onto a similar list (in a now-defunct throwaway magazine) as the second-best doctor in Scottsdale. (I think the first was a pediatrician.) The rating wasn’t even broken down by specialty, so having a neurologist so high up was unusual. It was, as best I could tell, based on random phone calls made during daytime hours to houses in zip codes surrounding my office. I can only assume it was a remarkably skewed, non-scientific sample, and that many of my patients were home that day. I don\'t remember getting any referrals from that, and the magazine folded within a year.
The only thing I’d say is truly predictable is that after the annual "Top Doc" issue comes out, people call asking for my money: companies selling plaques or statues to commemorate the achievement, financial planners wanting to discuss my portfolio, and the occasional reporter wanting me to comment on a story. I turn them all away. I don’t even hang up my own diplomas, so I have no interest in more tchotchkes. I may not be a financial planner, but in this era I am reluctant to trust others with my money. And I hide from the general media.
In any profession, rating people is never easy. There are a lot of variables, and some things simply can’t be predicted. It’s flattering to be on the lists, but just like betting guides at a sports book, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
