To identify the "top doctors" listed in this book, we surveyed roughly 260,000 physicians. We surveyed physicians in the areas listed in the Table of Contents. This included more than 50 of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the U.S. and some additional areas. Within these areas, we surveyed all active doctors on the American Medical Association (AMA) mailing list. That is a comprehensive list, which includes both AMA members and doctors who are not AMA members.

We asked each surveyed doctor to tell us which specialists, in 30 different fields, he or she "would consider most desirable for care of a loved one."

Our list of doctors in each area contains the names of physicians who were mentioned multiple times by other physicians in their communities. Names appear in the specialty category chosen by the surveyed physicians.

Immediately following each physician's name, we report the number of mentions the physician received in our survey. Because of the nature of the survey, physicians in some specialties with large numbers of practitioners are unlikely to be mentioned more than a few times, while physicians in specialties with only a few practitioners but a fairly large number of patients may get a large number of mentions. Also, we received more responses to our survey in some areas of the country than in others. Accordingly, in some specialties and in some areas, we have listed specialists mentioned as few as three times; in other specialties and other areas, the cutoff was 10 mentions or more.

On the list, we indicate the medical school from which each physician graduated and his or her year of graduation. The list also shows what "board certifications," if any, each doctor holds. Board certification means that a physician has taken several years of practical training in a field after graduating from medical school and has passed a difficult exam in that field. Information on board certification - and on medical school for most board certified doctors - comes from a list compiled by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). In some areas, we used a 1997 ABMS list; in other areas, a 1998 list. Keep in mind that the ABMS lists we used may not include certification information on doctors who were recently certified. We asked the American Osteopathic Association to tell us about certifications by osteopathic physician specialty boards for doctors who we identified as having graduated from schools of osteopathic medicine. Addresses and phone numbers (and medical school information for some doctors) come from calls we made to the doctors' offices.

We have made great efforts to compile accurate information on addresses, phone numbers, and credentials for each physician, but these facts may have changed by the time you read this book, and no doubt in a book of this size there are some facts that are reported in error.

Keep in mind that our survey didn't ask about all specialties, so some physicians did not have an opportunity to be included on our lists.

Obviously, there are some possible biases in lists of the kind you will find in this book. Doctors could recommend themselves or close colleagues or other doctors with whom they have financially beneficial back-and-forth referral arrangements. Since we asked for recommendations in 30 specialty fields and invited doctors to recommend two doctors in each field, however, it is likely that most doctors were mentioning many specialists with whom they had no financial connections. It is also possible that some doctors who got favorable mentions did so just because they are well-known. They might have gotten negative mentions from other doctors if we had asked for negatives. Nonetheless, favorable mentions by a number of doctors the more the better - are likely to be a good sign. Our list should steer you to some very good candidates.