Department News

18 Physicians named Best Doctors® in 2008

The highly respected Best Doctors in America® healthcare ranking has been released for 2008 and again includes a sizeable representation of physicians from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Eighteen physicians have been named as a Best Doctor ® in ophthalmology, representing eight subspecialty services:

Five physicians in the Cornea Service were named a Best Doctor for 2008:
Dr. Elmer Tu, director, Dr. Joel Sugar, Dr. Sandeep Jain, Dr. Ali Djalilian and Dr. Dimitri Azar, director of the Refractive Surgery section and head of the Department. Dr. Sugar and Dr. Azar were both ranked earlier this year as Top Doctors for 2008 by Castle Connolly, another leading healthcare ranking service.

The Glaucoma Service is represented this year on the Best Doctors list by
Dr. Jacob Wilensky, acting director, and Dr. David Hillman. Dr. Wilensky also was ranked as a 2008 Castle Connolly Top Doctor for 2008.

Dr. James Goodwin, director of the Neuro-Ophthalmology Service, was named a Best Doctor and had been named a Top Doctor earlier this year.

The Pediatric Ophthalmology and Adult Strabismus has four Best Doctors: Dr. Nathalie Azar, director of the service; Dr. Irene Maumenee, who recently joined the Department and specializes in rare genetic eye diseases; and,
Dr. Lawrence Kaufman and Dr. Robert Egel, both part-time attendings.

Dr. Amjad Ahmad, co-Director of the Oculoplastic and Reconstructive Surgery Service was named a Best Doctor for 2008. Dr. Allen Putterman was ranked as a 2008 Castle Connolly Top Doctor for 2008.

In the Retina Service, Dr. Jennifer Lim, director, and Dr. William Mieler, also director of the Ocular Oncology section and vice chairman of the Department, were listed. Dr. Gerald Fishman, director of the Inherited Retinal Disease Service, also was named a Best Doctor, and had been ranked earlier this year as a Top Doctor.

Dr. Debra Goldstein, director of the Uveitis Service, and her colleague and mentor, Dr. Howard Tessler, were named Best Doctors®.

In total, the Department has 19 Best and/or Top Doctors, according to the leading healthcare ranking services.

Drs. Ahmad, Dimitri and Nathalie Azar, Djalilian, Egel, Fishman, Goldstein, Goodwin, Hillman, Lim, Maumenee, Mieler, Sugar, Tessler, Tu and Wilensky have all appeared on the list previously, including last year.

Dr. Dimitri Azar and Dr. Putterman were ranked both as Top Doctors nationally, as well as locally, in 2008.

Best Doctors Inc. conducts peer-to-peer surveys to select 50,000 Best Doctors worldwide in 400 subspecialties, including ophthalmology. 1.5-million evaluations are collected annually, and only 5% of the doctors in any country are actually selected to become Best Doctors. The specialists who make the list are considered by fellow physicians to be the most skilled in their fields and most qualified for reviewing and treating complex medical conditions.

Castle-Connolly’s invites nominations process for America's Top Doctors from a selected pool of board-certified physicians in a given geographic area. These randomly selected doctors receive letters inviting them to enter nominations on-line of other American doctors whom they feel are clinically outstanding, both on the regional and national level. These nominations are then reviewed by a physician-led research staff, which validates nominations and verifies each doctor's credentials. This results in a preliminary list of America's Top Doctors. Each of the provisionally selected top doctors is then asked to complete a comprehensive professional biography form, which becomes an integral part of selected doctors' listings in the Guide. The last phase of the process refines the list of provisionally selected top doctors by cross-referencing their names against a variety of databases providing confirmation of board certification, licensing, and disciplinary history.