Reputation Matters:  The Expansion of America’s Top Doctors into Different Geographic Markets

Now if I carry out this oath, and break it or not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for life and for my art.

Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), The Physician’s Oath

Proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Don Quixote (1605-1615)

June 14, 2012 – In today’s mail I received a massive 1564 page paperback volume, Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors, 11^th Edition.

The book lists 6500 top specialists among America’s 720,000 doctors. I also received two subsidiary volumes, a 99 page listing of top specialists in Washington-Baltimore, and a 113 page listing  of  best specialists in Southern California. 

The basis for selection to be one of America’s top specialists is nomination by one’s peers and then extensive vetting of one’s professional reputation and experience.  This process begins with surveys of the nation’s leading medical specialists, department chairs, residency program directors, vice presidents of medical affairs and presidents of America’s leading medical centers and specialty hospitals.  In the end, the selection rests on one’s professional reputation as a pioneer and practitioner in one’s specialty. Nothing is more valuable than one’s reputation among those who trained you and referred to you over the years.

His frontis piece of the big volume reads:

America’s Top Doctors

A Castle Connolly Guide, 11^th Edition

The Best in American Medicine

America’s trusted source for

identifying top doctors

I am one of eleven members of the Medical Advisory Board of Castle Connolly Medical Ltd, located in New York City. Its publishers are:

·         John K. Castle, Chairman of Castle Connolly. served as Chairman of the Board of New York Medical College for 11 years. He received a B.S, from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. 

·         John J. Connolly, ed.D.  Dr. Connolly serves as President of New York Medical College, the nation’s second largest private medical college, for more than 10 years. He is the author and/or editor of 7 books.

The 3 volumes listed above were created in a “Partnership for Excellence Program” with 22 leading medical academic hospital centers.

Continuum Health Partners

Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center

Fox Chase Cancer Center

H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Hospital for Special Surgery

The Johns Hopkins Hospital

Maimonides Medical Center

Mount Sinai Medical Center

New York Eye & Ear Infirmary

New York-Presbyterian Hospital

NYU Langone Medical Center

NYU Rusk Institute for Rehabilitation

Penn Medicine

St. Francis Hospital; - The Heart Center

UHealth- University of Miami Health System

UHealth- Bascom Palmer Eye Institute

Health – University of Maim Hospital

UHealth – University of Miami Hospital & Clinics/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

University Hospitals Case Medical Center

USC University Hospital

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

These 3 books are acknowledgement of the success of specialty and academic medicine in America.   Two thirds of America’s physicians are specialists.  Many, certainly not all, of specialty leaders practice in America’s academic institutions that  train most of the nation's specialists.  Doctors outside of academic centers care for te majority of Americans.

The big book  goes  into painstaking detail into how America’s top doctors were selected, displays their credentials and expertise, and details where and how they can be located and reached.  Their locations are by regions of the country – West Coast and Pacific, Great Plains and Mountains, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast, Mid Atlantic, and New England.

That the main volume is in its 11 edition is proof of the pudding – Americans' need to know the reputations of America best specialists, where they  practice, where they  hang out, and how they may be reached.
 
I am proud to be associated with this exemplary and extraordinary enterprise. For more information, consult www. Castle Connolly.com or call 1212-367-8400. Extension 10.

Tweet:   Castle Connolly’s American Top Doctors, 11^th edition,  lists 6500 top specialists in America who are nominated and selected by peers.