Just like everyone else, doctors vary in how good they are. Unfortunately, there is a popular meme (actively promulgated by the doctors guild) that all doctors are sufficiently competent so that any will do. That’s… not true.
Given this, it’s shouldn’t be surprising that finding out the particular doctor’s competency ex ante is hard to impossible (unless s/he screwed up so hard, s/he ran into trouble with the law or the medical board). Typically you’ll have to rely on proxies (e.g. the reputation of the medical school s/he went to).
Beyond that, things start to depend on what do you need a doctor for. If you have a condition to be treated, you probably want a specialist in that (even primary care physicians have specializations). If you want to run a lot of tests on yourself, you want a doctor who’s amenable to ordering whatever tests you ask him for. Etc., etc.
First of all, competence and skill.
Just like everyone else, doctors vary in how good they are. Unfortunately, there is a popular meme (actively promulgated by the doctors guild) that all doctors are sufficiently competent so that any will do. That’s… not true.
Given this, it’s shouldn’t be surprising that finding out the particular doctor’s competency ex ante is hard to impossible (unless s/he screwed up so hard, s/he ran into trouble with the law or the medical board). Typically you’ll have to rely on proxies (e.g. the reputation of the medical school s/he went to).
Beyond that, things start to depend on what do you need a doctor for. If you have a condition to be treated, you probably want a specialist in that (even primary care physicians have specializations). If you want to run a lot of tests on yourself, you want a doctor who’s amenable to ordering whatever tests you ask him for. Etc., etc.