Choosing a doctor is never an easy task to do for anyone, especially after an injury.  Thanks to the internet, the days of flipping through the phone book to find a doctor are dying.  Now, online medical directories tend to be where people go when it comes to choosing the doctor for them.

But is that method really the best method to chooser a good doctor?

Our personal injury lawyers have our own tips for when we need to help our clients choose a doctor.  These tips won’t guarantee you’ll find the best doctor, but hopefully these tips will help you find a good doctor for you and your family.

1.  Observe for a clean and organized office.  Much like many things in life, first impressions are EVERYTHING!  The first thing you look at before you even see the doctor … is the office.  Clean, organized offices show the doctor has good attention to detail and takes pride and care into his practice.  Doctors take great pride in knowing they are the ones who help cure people with personal injuries, so they should take pride in the appearance of their practice.

2.  Make sure your doctor is board certified.  The simplest way to define board certification is to say that a board certified doctor is certified and eligible to practice.  At the American Board of Medical Specialties Web site, you will find a section where you can actually look up whether or not your doctor is board certified.

3.  Make sure your doctor is ethical.  Doctors have a specific code of ethics they must follow.  In 1949, the World Medical Association introduced their International Code of Medial Ethics.  These ethics include things like always maintaining high standards of professional conduct and practicing a profession uninfluenced by profit motives.  You can go here to read about the WMA’s code of ethics.

4.  Try to choose an internist.  There are many different types of doctors you can choose from, and our personal injury lawyers recommend you find an internist.  Internists are specially trained to diagnose severe and chronic illnesses.  They also specialize in cases where several illnesses may attack you simultaneously.  Internists can also help you understand other preventive medicines and more specifics such as men’s and women’s health, substance abuse, mental health, as well as effective treatment of common problems of certain body parts.  Older adults in the United States prefer to use internists as their primary medical practitioners.

Now that we’ve established how educated and moral your doctor should be, we want to elaborate on how caring your doctor should be.

5.  Choose a doctor with good bed-side manner.  A doctor with a good bedside manner is one who will comfort you while being honest about a diagnosis.  Some ways to calculate a good bedside manner include body language or vocal tones.  If you have a doctor with horrible bedside manner, you may have feelings of worry, fear or even worse in a bad situation … loneliness.  A doctor with a good bedside manner can explain the real diagnosis you have while keeping you from being alarmed.

6.  Make sure your doctor will always be there for you.  There’s the obvious explanation for that phrase, but consider this situation.  You’re not in the hospital, and an emergency arises that needs immediate care.  You call your doctor, and he’s not there.  Someone else is assigned to the problem who has never worked on you before.  Will you be able to have the same trust in this person?  You want your doctor to be there in case of an emergency, and if he isn’t, you want your doctor to be able to recommend a doctor that he trusts to take care of you as if you were a trusted relative.

As our personal injury lawyers would say: “Good doctors stick together.  If you know one, you know them all.”

7.  Try to choose a doctor who is open to using alternative medicine.  In today’s medical world, doctors need to be able to do things: keep up and think outside the box.  A study of adults age 18+  shows that about 75% of those surveyed used some form of alternative medicine (i.e. acupuncture, herbalism).  There are those times where conventional medicine is not enough to get the job done.  Your doctor needs to consider other ways help you recover.

Our personal injury attorneys in San Diego reiterate that these tips won’t help you find the best doctor in the world, but they are helpful in aiding you choose a good doctor.  A good doctor is the one who will be there for you in good times as well as the bad times — not to mention someone who will consider all options when it comes to your treatment.

Call us now at 1-858-551-2090 for a FREE consultation with an experienced San Diego personal injury attorney or click here to submit your case for a FREE online review.  We have associates who speak both English and Spanish, so contact us if you wish to seek legal council.