‘Best Doctors’ Lists Reflect Peer Referrals

Ever wonder how physicians make those “Best Doctors” lists in metropolitan magazines?

Here’s how Woodward/White Inc., an Aiken, S.C., research firm, came up with 99 “A-list healers” listed in Orange Coast magazine’s April issue.

Seven years ago, Woodward/White began semiannual polls of physicians nationally, asking those at top-ranked medical schools: “If a close friend or loved one needed a doctor in your specialty and you couldn’t treat them yourself, to whom outside your own institution would you refer them?”

Steven Naifeh, a Woodward/White founder, explains the firm’s approach: “These were doctors that have trained at major centers and we could trust to give us the inside story.”

For the latest list of 99 top local doctors, Woodward/White polled the 104 local winners from the last survey two years ago and 157 physicians outside the county. The firm received about 5,800 votes for Orange County doctors this time. Physicians could nominate as many specialists in their own field as they wished.

So, how good is the list?

“The people I know on that list are very good, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend people that are not on that list either,” said Dr. Stanley Lowenberg, president of the Orange County Medical Assn., which represents about one-third of the 6,000 physicians practicing in the county.

An ear, nose and throat specialist, Lowenberg himself isn’t listed. He says he has served as an attending clinician at UC Irvine’s medical school for 25 years and has never even been asked to vote.

He figures the survey is useful mostly for institutions like UCI, which built a big ad campaign around UCI doctors listed in the 1996 survey. “Even if they asked me, I’m not even sure of whom I’d recommend in my own specialty,” he said. “There are so many that are good at what they do.”

Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com.