# How do I do a thorough investigation of my doctor/surgeon/enesthesiologist?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-a-thorough-investigation-of-my-doctor-surgeon-enesthesiologist/147066>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 7, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-a-thorough-investigation-of-my-doctor-surgeon-enesthesiologist/147066 "2003-01-07T01:44:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-a-thorough-investigation-of-my-doctor-surgeon-enesthesiologist/147066/1 "2003-01-07T01:44:57Z")

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I checked the AMA website, and that was minimally helpful. All it lists is the most basic information.

I want to get as much info as I can about my doctors, particularly my surgeon.

Help.

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**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-a-thorough-investigation-of-my-doctor-surgeon-enesthesiologist/147066/2 "2003-01-07T03:15:59Z")

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Two recommendations:  
Hit Google and check for the name of your state, plus the words “professional licensing”. You should turn up a state government site that has all of the professional licenses for your state. Look up the physician licenses for the doctors. Not only will they show if they are currently licensed (nearly 100% likely if they’re not out of some storefront or something), but there may be other info. The State of Illinois’ site lists if they’ve ever had any disciplinary action taken against them. If you really want to get creative, try this in the state where they did their residency (which should be listed at the AMA site), and see if they were disciplined there.

Then use this method to look up the site that handles the board certification for that specialty. For instance, a pediatrician is certified through the American Board of Pediatrics. If they have a specialty within that field, they should also be certified in that as a subspecialty (for instance, pediatric cardiology). Note that some hospitals may not require a specialist within a field to keep the board certification in the general field. I wouldn’t recommend that you see a physician who isn’t board certified in their area of expertise, though realize that these are hard tests and they get to try to retake the test if they don’t pass. One of the best pediatric cardiologists I know failed his subspecialty exam; he’d underestimated it badly, but passed easily on a retry. (And I did know one practicing pediatric specialist who hadn’t passed his subspecialty board exam after years of retrying.)

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**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2003, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-a-thorough-investigation-of-my-doctor-surgeon-enesthesiologist/147066/3 "2003-01-07T07:33:33Z")

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Public Citizen [not a rap group] has a _Questionable Doctors_ site. Docs who were disciplined by state & fed gov’ts. See

> **[Physician Accountability - Public Citizen](https://www.citizen.org/article/physician-accountability/)**
>
> Medical errors are responsible for the deaths of 98,000 Americans each year. Patients trust their doctors to act responsibly and they trust state medical boards to hold their doctor accountable if they can’t maintain accepted standards of competence....