Honors

Each year the Society names a small number of its members Platinum Top Doctors. There is no committee, no ballot, no nomination form, and no fee. There is the founder, and there is his judgment.

How they are decided

Privately, and without consultation. The founder makes the selections himself, announces them at the year end dinner, and offers no reasoning beyond whatever he feels like saying at the microphone. Members are not told they are under consideration, because they are not under consideration. They are simply chosen or they are not.

This is, admittedly, an absurd way to run an honors program. It is also the only way this particular honor could mean anything at all, which takes some explaining.

Why it means something anyway

There is a large and profitable industry built on telling physicians they are among the best. A doctor is nominated, often by a process he cannot inspect. He is congratulated. He is then invited to purchase the plaque, the crystal award, the badge for his website, the reprint rights, and a listing in a glossy publication. The honor arrives with an invoice, and the invoice is the point.

The Society’s honors work the other way around. Nobody is nominated. Nobody applies. Nobody pays, and there is nothing to buy afterward. The recipient is chosen by one man who knows every member personally, has watched them work, has heard what the rest of the room says about them when they are not present, and has no financial interest in the outcome whatsoever.

That is a narrower honor than a specialty board certification and a considerably better one than most of what is sold. It is also, being the gift of a single person with strong opinions, entirely arbitrary. Both things are true and the Society sees no reason to pretend otherwise.

The honors

• Platinum Top Doctor. The principal honor. Conferred on a small number of members annually.
• The Curbside. For the member who has fielded the most consults after 11 PM without once making the caller feel stupid.
• The Zebra. For the strangest case brought to the table in a calendar year, judged on the quiet in the room.
• Service Abroad. For a member who went somewhere difficult and came back without making a production of it.
• The Longest Unread Thread. Not an honor. Conferred anyway.

Publication

The Society may or may not maintain a relationship with a publisher of inflight airline magazines, in which honorees have been known to appear between an advertisement for a watch and a short piece about Lisbon. Members are invited to draw their own conclusions about which of those three the reader remembers at altitude.

Whether such a relationship exists, and whether the Society places advertising in those pages, is not something we have ever felt obliged to clarify. What we will say plainly is that no honoree has ever been asked to pay for anything, and none ever will be.