Off the top of my head, the most reliable way would be to ask another senior medical professional—senior as they would tend to have been in the same geographic area for a while and know their colleagues, plus have more direct contact with primary care physicians. Also, rather than asking “who should i see as my primary care physician”, you could ask “who would you send your family to see?”. This might help prevent them from just recommending a friend/someone with whom they have a financial relationship. I note that this would be relatively hard to do unless you already know a senior medical professional.
Another option would be to ask a medical student (if you happen to know any in your area) which primary care physicians teach at their university and they would recommend. Through my medical training I have found that teaching at a medical school to be weak-to-moderate evidence of being above average. Asking a medical student would help add a filter for avoiding some of the less competent ones, strengthening this evidence
I think lay-people’s opinions correlate much more strongly with how approachable and nice their doctor is, as opposed to competence. Doctor rating sites could be used just to select for pleasant ones, if you care about that aspect.
(caveats: opinion based; my experience is limited to the country i trained in; I am junior in experience)
Off the top of my head, the most reliable way would be to ask another senior medical professional—senior as they would tend to have been in the same geographic area for a while and know their colleagues, plus have more direct contact with primary care physicians. Also, rather than asking “who should i see as my primary care physician”, you could ask “who would you send your family to see?”. This might help prevent them from just recommending a friend/someone with whom they have a financial relationship. I note that this would be relatively hard to do unless you already know a senior medical professional.
Another option would be to ask a medical student (if you happen to know any in your area) which primary care physicians teach at their university and they would recommend. Through my medical training I have found that teaching at a medical school to be weak-to-moderate evidence of being above average. Asking a medical student would help add a filter for avoiding some of the less competent ones, strengthening this evidence
I think lay-people’s opinions correlate much more strongly with how approachable and nice their doctor is, as opposed to competence. Doctor rating sites could be used just to select for pleasant ones, if you care about that aspect.
(caveats: opinion based; my experience is limited to the country i trained in; I am junior in experience)