Updated on November 4, 2005 at 4:15 p.m.
Posted on October 24, 2005 at 2:35 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The latest list of "Best Doctors in America" includes 234 UAB physicians, comprising more than two-thirds of all specialists from the Birmingham metropolitan area now in the Best Doctors database.

Best Doctors is an independent, knowledge-based medical referral service located in Aiken, S.C. Its surveys ask peer physicians, “If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?” Only about 3 to 5 percent of all specialists worldwide make the list, which currently names 33,000 in the U.S. — including 345 physicians in the Birmingham area.

“This is yet another indicator of the extraordinary concentration of medical expertise available to Alabamians at UAB,” said Robert R. Rich. M.D., UAB senior vice president for medicine and dean of the UAB School of Medicine. “I am proud that so many UAB faculty physicians have achieved this distinction.”

Nominations for the list are anonymous, and doctors’ evaluations are confidential, according to the company. The system of review, based on methodology invented in 1992, includes a method of catching and correcting bias, for or against particular physicians or groups of physicians. Listings cannot be purchased.

Consumers can learn more about Best Doctors at www.bestdoctors.com.

The UAB doctors that made the list can be found online at the UAB Health System Web site.