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Hi Bob and Michael and PIEN list members: In addition to "peer review" for journal publications as Bob has stated, there are also local and institutional peer reviews through hospital committees and professional societies. Some of these peer reviews are done via Quality Assurance committees in hospitals and other organizations. This is probably what Dr. Riess was referring to. It has been proposed that hospitals should be keeping logs of procedures performed, outcomes, and percentages according to surgeon or provider. Some hospitals do, but such data are not available to the public because of concerns about liability. Indeed, some of these data are cosidered to be privileged and protected. At this point, the only way for a patient to get those data is to ask the surgeon directly what his operative outcome data are. It would be extremely awkward to "shop around" for the surgeon with the best record, not to mention extremely time consuming and impractical. For that reason one has to rely on hearsay to find the surgeon with the best reputation (and then hope that that doctor is in your insurance company's panel.) Nowadays, NEGATIVE data about doctors who have done terrible things is available through your state medical society and licensing boards in almost every state. Most of these data reflect very serious offenses and breaches of professional conduct rules and ethics. As expected, this involves a small minority of doctors. However, POSITIVE data that will help you select the doctors with the best quality of work by their success record or outcome measures is not available to the general public. We do not have Consumer's Reports giving us statistics of performance for doctors as they do for kitchen appliances and cars. Michael asks about criteria to decide which doctor to pick - it depends entirely on the nature of the problem and the possible outcomes for which a physican is consulted. Jorge Romero, MD ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert A. Fink, M. D." <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 4:43 PM Subject: Re: cure/VIROLOGY and IMMUNOLOGY > Date sent: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:51:45 -0500 > Send reply to: Parkinson's Information Exchange Network <[log in to unmask]> > From: michael frederic <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: cure/VIROLOGY and IMMUNOLOGY > To: [log in to unmask] > > > Where would one obtain these peer reviews? > > > > Also, what do list members think are the best criteria for deciding on > > Dr. A vs. Dr. B vs. Dr. C? > > > > >"In fact the only way to judge the efficacy of a surgeon is through > > >peer review of published results." > > > > Michael Frederic, son of Wayne 70/69/67 > > What Dr. Romero was referring to was a "peer-reviewed" journal > listing the results of a scientific study.