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Francisco and Marin counties who received multiple independent recommendations from their peers. The list was rechecked again this
year. The survey process started with a list of more than 3,000 licensed doctors across all specialties in both counties. All doctors on this
list were both candidates and eligible voters in the peer-to-peer voting poll. Doctors were allowed to cast an unlimited number of votes
across all specialties — they could vote for as many doctors as they wanted regardless of specific area of expertise — but they could only
vote for the same doctor once.
Response rate was maximized by the following procedures: (a) a long field period of 12 weeks that was further extended to allow
all doctors ample time to log in and vote for peers; (b) multiple channels of solicitations including both individual invitations and
organizational outreach to maximize contact with all eligible voters; and (c) repeated invitations and reminders to doctors who did not
respond to initial rounds of solicitations. At the close of the voting period, approximately 600 doctors with the highest vote counts were
short-listed for the database. Each of these doctors received a statistically significant number of votes from peers based on established
principles of sampling probabilities and power analysis. LinChiat Chang, Ph.D.
2015
We asked doctors, “Whom would you send your
family members to, or whom would you go to, if
faced with a medical problem?” More than 19,000
votes were cast, and the results — approximately
600, all in the 415 area code — are listed on the
following pages. To search by specialty online, visit
marinmagazine.com/415topdoctors.
