The editors of the local business journal in Nashville were holding an internal conference. The topic of discussion was a survey the magazine had recently received listing “the best doctors in Nashville,” broken down by specialty. It was an annual ritual the magazine went through. It simply published the list with the information provided, then moved on to the next issue and the next set of topics.
This time, however, a young staffer, Yuri Weigland, was clearly uncomfortable with the survey and how it had been conducted, and was raising questions. Weigland had been an intern at the journal for the two previous summers, and had been hired as a full-time staffer and writer six months earlier.
“I’ve been reading through the material provided to us,” Weigland said, primarily addressing the editor, Sam Rostow. “It just looks like the method of determining these doctors was not very scientific.”
“How do you mean, exactly?” Rostow attempted to be polite, but there was a touch of sharpness in his tone. The other staffers, eight in all, alternately looked bored or irritated. To them, it was clearly a routine assignment, something to be passed through and put aside so that additional work could be accomplished.
“Well, it looks as if this list of doctors is basically generated by other doctors recommending them,” Weigland said, somewhat energetically, leaning forward in his chair. “It looks as if it was purely the recommendations of other doctors, even competing doctors in the same specialty.”
“That’s right, that’s how it’s always been done.”
Rostow had sensed, early on, that Weigland was going to be somewhat of a pest in the way he did things. Rostow had learned, soon after Weigland was hired, that he tended to question everything, the assumptions behind each particular story or news release, and rarely just carried out orders without coming back with a series of questions. Rostow had tolerated it, but like with some other eager-beaver young staffers, he knew that he would have to bring it to a halt; he thought now might be a good time to do so
“I have two uncles who are doctors,” Weigland said. “One is a heart surgeon, and the other is an ophthalmologist. I just don’t see how one doctor can recommend another doctor across town, when they aren’t even in the same practice together, over every other doctor in the same specialty who’s not in the same practice, either.”
“What does all that mean?” Rostow asked impatiently, waiving his hand. The other staffers looked on with excited curiosity, more at the tension between Rostow and Weigland than at having any particular stand on the issue. “I don’t follow your argument.”
“I just don’t see how one doctor can evaluate another without seeing that other doctor perform a lot of procedures, and then even if he did that, how could he say that that other doctor performed all those procedures better or worse than the numerous other doctors that he didn’t see perform procedures at all? Do you follow what I’m saying?”
“No, not at all. Can we just move on?”
“Well, it just seems like we might be able to do an article about this very survey,” Weigland said animatedly, seemingly getting more excited with each exchange. “Or maybe even a series of articles about these types of surveys. We run them all the time. Not just doctors, but lawyers, dentists, engineers. The same question applies to all of them: How can they evaluate and recommend one person, or even a small group of people, as the best at something, and ignore all the other members of those professions, without doing some type of scientific test evaluating them side by side doing the exact same procedures?That’s how real scientists do lab work and establish what’s best and what’s not.”
Rostow started to respond impatiently, but caught himself just before he said a word. He had been standing at the end of a long table. Now, he seemed to try to calm himself and took a seat. “I know I appear to be impatient or irritated. Write it up, Weigland. Write up a suggestion and give it to me. I see your point, but doing an article like that would ruffle a lot of feathers in a lot of different directions, and we try not to do that as much as possible. We’re not an investigative journal, we’re more of a service to the community. We don’t question whether announcements are true, we just run them”
“I’ll do that, Sam. I know I caught you by surprise, bringing it up, but it’s something that’s been on my mind for a while. I’ve read through several of these surveys, and the background information, since I’ve been here, and I don’t see the scientific value of it. Some of the doctors on there may be very good doctors, but are they really the best? That’s my question.”
Weigland looked around the table, but all the other staffers seemed to either avert their eyes, or retain their already noncommittal expressions. There wasn’t a lot of support, true, for his position, but he didn’t see much opposition, either.
Nashville: The Mood (Part 2) Page 9