San Diego's Best Doctors

Medicine, it has been said, is the profession where art and science blend most thoroughly. It’s also the discipline where the objective and subjective blur most easily.

The choice of a “best” doctor probably depends most on the patient doing the choosing. In 2002, unfortunately, most of us find our choices severely restricted by the dictates of our HMOs or PPOs—a subject that’s addressed in this “Best Doctors” section.

In the not-too-distant past, most of us relied on our trusted family doctor—the now-endangered general practitioner—for medical attention. If he or she couldn’t handle the problem, we trusted the family doc for a referral to a good specialist. In a way, that’s what we’ve done within these pages.

The 247 “best” San Diego doctors listed here—in 30 specialties—are not physicians chosen by the staff of San Diego Magazine. Indeed, some of our own favorites didn’t make the cut. These are the San Diego doctors who were deemed best by their peers. The doctors who chose the best of 2002 were themselves voted best by their peers in the previous poll. This year’s “best” have been chosen from among more than 4,000 physicians in the San Diego region. San Diego has an enviable reputation as a center of medical research and patient care. All of the doctors on our 2002 list are in heady company.

In producing a “Best Doctors” issue, San Diego Magazine has collaborated with Best Doctors, Inc. of South Carolina, which conducts surveys all across the country, involving some 30,000 doctors in more than 40 specialties.

The key survey question: “If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, and you could not treat them yourself, to whom would you refer them?” In addition, every doctor contacted is given the opportunity to comment (confidentially) on the other doctors listed in his or her specialty and to make additional nominations. As new names are added to the pool, each undergoes the same rigorous peer-evaluation process.

The breadth and depth of the Best Doctors® voting pool help eliminate the biases and cronyism that often mar smaller-scale surveys. The Best Doctors national survey of the medical profession involved more than a million individual evaluations. Voting is strictly confidential. Doctors are not asked for, nor do they pay, any fees for inclusion. And they are not notified of their inclusion until after the survey process is completed.

Each physician included is either certified or subcertified through the American Board of Medical Specialties.

All of this information is meant to give you the tools you need to choose a physician wisely. But Philadelphia Magazine, which has been doing its own “Best Doctors” issues for 20 years, offers perhaps the most valuable advice of all on picking a doctor:

“Every little cold and cough doesn’t require a top doctor. If you have a kind and caring physician who returns your calls promptly and takes the time to listen to your complaints, consider yourself lucky, and stay put.”

If you don’t, and you’re looking seriously, our list can be the best place to start.

—Editor

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