What is an "Expert" or "Artist".

Unfortunately the definitions would be different depending on who you would ask.  And of course if you ask the doctor or his staff they all would say the doctor is an expert.  So how do we tell?

First lets start with how you do not tell who is an expert.

1.  You do not tell by asking any patient of the doctor - they would not have chosen the doctor if they did not feel the doctor was an expert in their eyes.

2.  If the doctor gives you a list of his patients to call - remember he has only given you the names of the patients that would support him.  He is not going to give you the names of someone who doesn't like him.

3.  You do not get names from friends.  If they were patients - see number 1 above.  If they just heard that a certain doctor was an expert - it is rumor and not to be believed.

4.  If the doctor or his staff gives you a paper written in office and not published in a medical journal then it may well be make believe and show you only what they want you to know.

5.  If the doctor shows you a paper written by someone else, another doctor or clinic, which he/she purports that this is the results he/she can achieved - run fast out the door.

6.  If you call your local Medical Society for names - they will only give you the names of their paid up members with no selection as to good or bad.

7.  If you ask one doctor for a reference he/she will refer you to another doctor.  Remember these doctors have "Old Boys Networks" where one scratches the others back by referrals.  Most of the times these referrals have little to do with expertise or studies done by the doctor - it is a "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours".  In clinics and Universities the referrals will only be to doctors in that clinic or that University - regardless of skills and studies produced.

OK so now we have destroyed all those ideas you had on how to choose a doctor lets see what we can do to chose an expert in his field.  It is not easy and will take some research by you.  Of the following paragraphs, number 7 is the most important followed by number 6.  Actually the importance is kind of in reverse order.

1.  I want to know what Medical School did he graduate from and where did he do his internship.  What school did he attend in his specialty.  All schools are certainly not the same and you probably have some idea as to the good ones.  For example the "Ivy League" schools take the best they can get.  State Universities vary across the country as to having good medical schools.  Many of the unknown schools or schools from other countries would not be schools that I would accept as top of the line.  Some of these schools take the bottom of the barrel for example - those who could not qualify elsewhere.  If you don't go to his office look it up on the Internet.  Frequently the doctors will have a page or information someplace. 

2.  You can always check the AMA "DoctosFinder" at http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/home.html .  However all doctors do not belong to the AMA but if they are listed it will give you some information.  If he is not listed it may raise a very small red flag - not enough to make a decision against on its own.

3.  Ask to see the doctors certificates as to where he went to the University, the Medical School and where he took his specialty training.  Usually he has them hanging on the walls.

4.  If he is in private practice look around at his offices and his employees.  Is his office done in good style that makes him look successful?  Is it well cared for and clean (look in the corners).  Are his employees sharp and able to answer your questions.  Do they seem happy and please to be working there.  Look at the dress of the employees and the doctor - is the dress neat and clean and looks nice.

5.  If your courts have public access to the law suites filed you can search the doctors name and find out if he has a number of malpractice (or other) law suites against him.  If he has only 1 or 2 it is probably of no value.  Many doctors will get sued at least once or twice in their lifetime.  Sometime states have lists of doctors being sued - check it out.

6.  An expert does a lot of procedures.  There has been many studies showing the more surgeries the doctors do (and the hospital does) the better the results.  This would apply to all of the fields.  At what point then do we believe a doctor has gained competence in his field.  A good number to remember is "300 in 3". This means at least 300 hundred procedures over the last 3 years.  These procedures must be of the type you are looking for.  Prostatectomies for prostate cancer for the surgeons.  Radiation of the prostate gland for prostate cancer for the Radiation Oncologists.  Seed implants to the prostate for the Brachytherapists.  Be careful in the cases of, for example, robotic surgery.  The surgeon may say that he has done 2000 robotic surgeries but when pinned down maybe only 50 of those were prostatectomies.  Robotic and Laparoscopic type surgeries have a long learning curve.  I would want the surgeon to have done at least 500 of them along with the 300 in 3.

7  THE MOST IMPORTANT - has the doctor published his results in a leading medical journal.  How can you find this out.  Go to PubMed and search!  Click on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ and "Search" PubMed "for" and then list the doctors name.  The doctors name should be listed as last name first and then an initial if you have one.  For example if you wanted to see the studies done by the famous prostate surgeon at Johns Hopkins - Patrick Walsh, MD you would enter into the search field "Walsh P AND prostate" (without the quotes).  This would give you a listing of every study with his name.  Now know that as head of the department there for years every Study that was published on the prostate at Johns Hopkins would have his name attached.  But every study that he was the principal investigator would show his name first.

If you want to further define a search you could use "Walsh P AND prostate AND biochemical" (without the quotes).  This would give you the studies where he talked about biochemical failures (see Vocabulary at http://prostate-help.org/vocab.html and http://www.prostate-help.org/recurrence.html ).  One could even define it further by clicking on "Limits" and then click on Humans and Males.  Note you can use this page for searching several different ways.

Also read http://www.prostate-help.org/goodenough.html#peer_equal and http://www.prostate-help.org/goodenough.html#Games and http://www.prostate-help.org/sinsindus.html

For the definitions of various kinds of publications see http://www.prostate-help.org/posters.html

A list by others of who they think are Experts can be found at http://www.prostate-cancer.org/resource/special.html.  Most of the doctors on the list are well known and some of them have published.  In some cases I would not support some on the list.  Although I would disagree with some of the named doctors - by an large it is better than nothing and a place to start.