Peer Nominations and the Process Behind Top Doctors

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greeting from mina
i am an egyptian male
when i was 5 years old i get an injure in my right eye(it was a glasses of Lamp exploded in my face) i did Surgery worked about two years after the incident now i have so opposite eyes color of my left eye is Dark Brown and the right eye color is blue with very little of brown really strange case make me have no confident of myself to talking to others And I feel ashamed to walking at the streets or talking to the girls...i cant see with my right eyes yet and it is too bad look ....i cant stay at the hot weather of the sun for a long time because that make Pressure rises inside my eyeball so i cant working at a sunny place.or a dusty place . jobless.make me have valueless in this life....all of the doctors told me that my eyes will never improving and cant do any surgery again because i had Planted the lens in my RIGHT eye when i was near of 7 years old and it is impossible to hold any kind of operations again in my RIGHT eye...THE optical nerve Fibrosis\DIED in my right eye..Dr. told me if there are any problems in this eye ... I'm going to have to replace it into industrial eye
now i am 24 years old
may i find solution for my right eye pleaseee

mina 3:15AM September 30, 2012

Well.......I read what you say you use to rate doctors..........but I see doctors in my own medical center listed as "top" that even the nurses who work with them would not go to. Doctors I wouldn't let touch my dog.
The list has been a source of absolute puzzlement to me and colleagues for years. Every so many years we look at each other, slowly shake our heads for a few seconds and go on our way as confused as ever. Takes about 2 minutes of our time and we just go back to work.
Your ratings could easily be, at least in part, simply a self-promotion scam with doctors who want to be on your list organizing and recommending each other.
There are many, many ways to rate and, much more importantly, validate your ratings that you don't use.
Do you look at patient outcome records? Do you request peer review by others not vested in the lists? Check complaints to state licensing boards. Malpractice suits. Randomly solicit peer reviews by others in the same field. Poll others members of the person's own department. Look for publications in significant medical journals. Ask for recommendations by patients. Use anything.
Because your ratings are nothing but a cruel joke played on hundreds of innocent patients who think they are making "informed" decisions based on a second rate general interet magazine which must be desperate to make a profit selling "guidebooks" based on ouiga boards, mystics looking at glass balls or just throwing darts at a board.
It is very, very sad.
From what I see on your lists, I never trust anything you publish.

Alvin of IA 10:16PM September 29, 2012

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444620104578008263334441352.html
Is Jihad Kaouk at the Cleveland Clinic "Dr HODAD?"

Cleveland Clinic Victim of OH 8:00AM September 26, 2012

Why don't you ask patients to evaluate their doctors? Physicians relate to patients different than to other physicians. I bet you would find that many of your best doctors are not best doctor to patients.

phyllis gallagher of NY 5:42PM August 14, 2012

Where is the number of nominations stated?
A doctor with 2 nominations should not be equal to none with 14 nominations.

roger of FL 3:41PM August 05, 2012

How much is Castle Connolly paid for these false, misleading rankings of many rogue doctors. Many comments below correctly note that patient outcomes are not considered. When many injured patients of Jihad Kaouk of the Cleveland Clinic notified Mr John Connolly of their very negative outcomes with permanent surgical injury, Castle Connolly did not alter their high ranking of this doctor. Place no trust in US New Rankings. Perhaps being ranked high by Castle Connolly should be a red flag to patients searching for quality care.

Expose Rogue Docs of OH 1:29PM August 01, 2012

I have had the pleasure and honor of working with Dr. William Ballance for almost 25 years. He truely deserves this honor. He is a dedicated and highly accomplished pathologist that serves Eastern North Carolina as both on staff with Vidant Medical Center, but also as the President and CEO of his private company Greenville Pathology, PA.

Beth Phillips-Ferrell of NC 1:09PM July 27, 2012

Perhaps I overlooked it, but did not see where actual data related to patient outcomes was considered in naming these 'top doctors'. If this is purely based on peer recommendation, physicians who work within larger health systems would be given an unfair advantage in that they have more peers who know of them, rather than to use objective scientifically based evidence.
Minimally there should be a disclaimer that this is not an evidenced based process.

Marian Tatarczuk of NH 11:17AM July 23, 2012

As a physician at a small community hospital located near a major medical center, it is obvious that your top doctor methodology is flawed. That is because the larger the institution in which one practices, obviously the more peers there are to cast such a vote. Meanwhile, there may be vast differences in acceptable level of care between a small private facility, and a large teaching one. This became blatantly obvious when our hospital opened it's doors to allow UTMB doctors to see patients at our facility following Hurricane Ike. Trying to to get the physicians from that institution to step up their game to practice at an acceptable level of care, lead to most of those physicians simply dropping their privileges so that they wouldn't be subjected to further scrutiny.

Albert T Kocurek MD of TX 9:26AM July 21, 2012

I personally know the work of several of the doctors on the Top Doctors list. The fact that some of them are on the list is evidence that Castle Connolly's methodology is flawed. For example, the methodology includes "hospital appointments," "medical education and training," and "malpractice history." Anyone can be appointed to a position that is open. Being a department chair does not make one a good physician (Trust me.). Not having been sued does not make one a skilled physician. Having gone to Harvard Medical School does not make one a better physician than someone who went to Joe Schmoe University School of Medicine. These are meaningless metrics that have zero bearing on the quality of the physician's skills and intelligence as a physician. The nominations process as described by Castle Connolly has the goal of helping patients and other physicians identify physician who may best be able to help patients. But I can tell you in looking at the names of several of the physicians on that list that they are NOT the best physicians to go to. When I was a RESIDENT, I had to save the behind of one of those physicians (who was my attending at the time) on more than one occasion because that physician had little skill with patient management.
So I would caution anyone out there who reads the Top Doctors list to be aware that a name on that list is not necessarily even a GOOD doctor--let alone a top doctor. The nomination/evaluation process can be easily manipulated to get people listed when they are not good physicians.

John Q. Public of NC 11:57AM July 18, 2012