In fact, it's not all that easy to tell good doctors from bad. Sources like these can help, but the information you might want is scattered and incomplete. The more negative the information, the harder, and more expensive, it is to find. And the most thorough catalog of problem doctors, compiled by a government agency, is off-limits to the public. Still, various sources of public information on doctors are worth considering if you understand what they can, and cannot, tell you.
Credentials Confirming a physician's background is the first place to start.
Confirming this sort of information is relatively simple now. The American Medical Association has put its file of 650,000 U.S. physicians, both members and non-members, onto the World Wide Web. The information is quite basic, including medical school, residency training and specialties. It also tells whether the doctor has been certified by a specialty board, though it doesn't name the specialty. Much the same sort of information can be found in the AMA's Medical Directory, available in some libraries.