OUR ANNUAL TOP DOCTORS RANKINGS ARE IN.
Nearly 6,300 doctors in the Portland metropolitan area were considered in our new and improved survey, the
result of a partnership between Portland Monthly and Avvo, a Seattle-based company that has been rating medical professionals since 2007. Avvo rates and profiles 90 percent of doctors in the US, including all medical doctors* in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and Clark Counties. The doctors on the pages that follow represent the top 5 percent of practitioners in their fields.
OUR METHODS
Avvo proprietary algorithm rates all doctors on a 10-point scale, factoring in peer endorsements as well as experience, education, training, research, and awards. These dynamic ratings are regularly refreshed based on new information gleaned from doctors as well as from certifying and licensing boards. As of press time, all the practitioners on our list were certified to practice in their fields by their respective medical licensing board.
While the list in the pages that follow is a wide-ranging and carefully researched, many good doctors don’t appear on the list, especially those not actively engaged in research. This reference is best used as just one step in the careful journey toward finding the doctor who is right for you.
*While we fully recognize that acupuncturists, naturopaths, chiropractors, and other practitioners are vital to many Portlanders’ health, for this survey we defined “doctor” as a licensed medical doctor (MD) or a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO). Certain specialties, like emergency medicine and trauma surgery, were also omitted because patients do not typically choose their own doctors in those fields, or because of low sample size. Doctors can appear twice on the list if they split their time equally between two fields.
Published: January 2012
This is not a fair list. I work with amazing TOP Vascular doctors. And what I noticed througout the list is a lot of OHSU docs, very few Legacy, Providence, Kaiser docs made the list. We have patients who come from across Oregon/Washington to see our Vascular docs, because they are the best of the best, and one of them made the list a few years ago and not one of the 4 docs made the list this year.
You should be ashamed to publish such findings, seemingly all of the great physicians reside up on the hill. I have worked at 10 of the local hospitals and I can assure you that your findings are less than accurate, much less contain any remembance to the truth. Wow, your paper has lost all credibility.
This seems to be a biased selection of doctors. As fine as they are — There are many who were not on the list — Drs. Madey & Long, Dr. Hill, Dr. Bradley and many others who work out of hospitals not listed as OHSU. It makes one sad to see such biased reporting.
Easy to skew results when it is based on which institution campained the most for the voting for their MD’s.
However, you didn’t factor in the most important factors: Patient satisfaction, complications, length of stay, infections, and etc., into the results.
1: Alternative care apparently doesn’t produce “doctors”.
2: Seems weird that Emanuel Hospital (Level 1 trauma center) doesn’t have more docs on this list since all Fire and Police ask to be sent there if injured. Something is fishy here.
I know many wonderful doctors at Good Samaritan that are not on this list. You should let the nurses vote for the Top Portland Doctors at all sites and see what the REAL results are..we know who is the best!!
Compared to past lists one would think OHSU paid people to evaluate the services listed. What happened to investigative reporting? This list is a sham.
Pretty scary comments from all of you. I’m trying to find an excellent neurologist and thought the Portland Monthly was a good source. I see I was mistaken, after reading all the comments about their list. So once again, get out the dartboard, place blindfold over eyes and throw!!
quit with the bellyaching and sour grapes people. a list is just a list. do you think that people should take it as gospel? do your own research
How can you not be ashamed to publish such execrable marketing drivel. Two years ago, one of your “top” Pulmonary docs earned that designation by voting for himself using all his partner’s email identities ( without their knowledgs or consent ). The results reflect OHSU’s ability and willingness to stuff the ballot box and bear no relationship to the expertise of it’s staff.
There is something very wrong with this list. If you actually use the AVVO search engine to run some of the names it is completely inaccurate! Doctor “A” has been practicing 20+ years and is well published but only gets 3/5 stars for “experience” and 1/5 stars for “industry recognition” (and is not on the Best Doctor list). Doctor “B” has been out of residency for all of 6 months, has no major publications but gets 4/5 stars for “experience” and 2.5/5 stars for “industry recognition” (and is named on the Best Doctor list!)
Bottom line: check some other sources before going with a doc on this list. The process for how they got these names is majorly flawed.
Dr. McBride,
I agree with you that this process is far from ideal, but please do not use anecdotal evidence to denigrate an entire institution for the unethical practices of one person. Many hospital systems attempt to stuff the ballot box for lists like these, and this occurs all over the country. I have received e-mail reminders from Providence, Legacy, and OHSU reminding me to cast my votes for colleagues at these respective institutions.
Pretty damn easy to get on this list if you work at OHSU, or the Rebound clinic.
who’s paying off who?
portland monthly is a joke.
Nobody should be surprised that OHSU docs have been taking top honors since this whole list thing began. OHSU seems to have more advertisements than any of the other hospitals and that’s what seems to count for quality. How many times has Doernbecher received recognition while Emanuel has not? It is really sad. From this list, one would think the only place to get decent care is at OHSU… I know this is not the case because I work at Emanuel. I’m thankful Dr. Chen was honored top neurosurgeon. He operates at Emanuel… So do Dr.’s Silen, Zallen, and Jamison. Who are the real top docs that are not listed? Cardio thoracic: Jon Hill, Orthopedic spine: Adam Barmada & J Rafe Sales, Pediatric Surgery: Sanjay Krishnaswami, Orthopedics: Rich Gellman, Doug Beaman, Corey Vande Zandschulp, Britt Frome, & David Noall
Given the number of nurses who commented from February 18th to 23rd, there seems to be a campaign to promote physicians who did not make it to the list. Why is everyone up in arms? It is neither a perfect list nor a perfect process. It wasn’t 5 years ago, and it isn’t today. Having worked at Legacy Good Samaritan, Legacy Emanuel, Providence St. Vincent, Providence Portland, and OHSU, all of these hospitals try to game the system. The administration for these hospitals always sends out e-mail reminders to their physicians to vote for their favorite docs (usually at their own facilities). In years past, when it was just a popularity contest, this created a bias where the head of each department or division was the most likely to get chosen.
From my reading of the process, this year they also took into account research activities and awards. This is likely why OHSU was over represented.
The use of outcomes (infection, length of stay, other complications) to measure an individual physician rating is not going to be accurate either. A hospital that does “bread and butter” low-risk procedures will likely have lower infection and length of stay. A hospital that sees more surgeon to surgeon referral is usually getting patients with higher acuity problems, where the “easy fix” was already tried and failed.
Perhaps this should be titled “Top Doctors at OHSU”. This list is not very representative of the city. While I’m sure many of the OHSU doctors are top notch, I can’t help but wonder about your survey methods. All the top pediatric docs are at Doernbechers – really? As a medical professional, I wonder about publishing something so misleading to the general public.
Physicians voting on other Physicians is just a popularity contest. Let Registered Nurses vote— then you will know who has the best outcomes, the best bedside manner, etc.
Besides, this isn’t even entirely accurate. Robert Steelman is a Pediatric Intensivist- not a regular Pediatrician. What else is incorrect or inflated to the public?
I guess the “non-OHSU” group just get “lucky” with pt outcomes since they are at the bottom of this list.
Great list, but unfortunately all the doctors I’ve attempted to contact are not taking new patients.
This list is a joke. It is easy to tell who had a say in this list and it wasn’t patients.