Well said, my friend.
I have little new to add. But I want to repeat that, from my experience and observations, although people claim to want “the top person”, in practice, they wind up complaining about that person’s “rudeness”, etc. The patient gets referred to “the top guy”, was forewarned by their GP, “hey, he’s a cold duck, but the best”, and often still comes away feeling hard done by after their visit.
On a different tangent, I, myself have had a LOT of surgery. Much, much more than most people have in (two) lifetimes, all done by the same guy. I remember when things started and I told my colleagues what kind of surgery I was going to have - without even pausing, many of them immediately offered words to the effect of, “Oh, you must be seeing Dr. ‘X’ for the surgery, no?”, with Dr. ‘X’ generally held to be the top guy.
But I wasn’t seeing X. I felt that the difference in technical skill between X and my guy was probably not all that great. More importantly, I liked my surgeon. He was a normal person; I could talk to him. I wanted someone who I wouldn’t be “afraid” to bother if I was concerned about something. As it turned out, I developed all types of problems as time went on, and each and every time my surgeon immediately accommodated me with whatever was required. I am certain that I would have either hesitated “to bother” X with some of my post-op symptoms (and we’re talking many operations in a few years), or he would have not been able to see me expeditiously (‘in Europe’, ‘away at a conference’, ‘lecturing in Prague’, and so forth). I would have lost time and suffered more. And I probably would have wound up switching to a different surgeon eventually using the diplomatic excuse that “given how busy you are, what with all your travel and commitments, etc.”
One last, semi-relevant note: When my sister needed the involvement of a particular subspecialty in her care, I could have gotten her in to anyone. There is no doubt that the “top guy” would have seen her if I asked. But the knowledge and skills required to meet her medical needs were not esoteric, in my opinion. So, I made sure she saw a nice, caring person who, no doubt, would be considered average in terms of medical skill. No problem. What was important, again in my opinion, was that she would feel comfortable with him.