Today, it’s easy to find competent and dependable doctors, but it can be quite challenging to find great ones. Here are things you should consider when looking for great doctors:

• Strong education and training: Make sure that the doctor is board certified. This will ensure that you get high quality care. Doctors need to have top notch education, experience, skill and knowledge. Board certification is much more than basic medical licensure. It’s easy and quick to determine whether a doctor is board certified. In the United States, you can check the ABMS website and find board certified doctors in your area. You shouldn’t put too much weight on enrolment in big-name schools. Elite medical schools may require students to spend more than $50,000 each year, which is unrealistic for many promising students. High price doesn’t always correlate to better performance.
• Reasoning based on experience: When choosing doctors for your family, credentials should be a bare minimum necessity. Experience must play a strong role in decision that doctors take. In an emergency situation, doctors should make decisions very quickly. They should implement evidence-based medicine into the daily practice. Human body is complex and it is complicated to decipher the puzzle to correctly apply all methods. Doctors should have the goal to restore and protect the well being of their patient. Experience should enhance rational decision making.
• Excellent communication: In order to be effective, doctors must have excellent soft skills, which become a part of their positive personal attributes. Great doctors are able to listen to their patients and respond properly. It takes good listening skill, if doctors want to gather valuable information. If patients feel that they are being understood, they will acknowledge health problems better. It’s also easy for them to modify behaviors accordingly, follow medication schedules and understand treatment options. Great doctors know how to communicate with family and friends. In fact, doctors should know how to establish a team culture among medical professionals, family members and patients. Everyone should work as a strong and cohesive team to address the health problem. Excellent communication is essential coordinate all efforts.
• Compassion: Great doctors are not only valued for their technical competence, but also their humanistic qualities, such as compassion, warmth and kindness. Often, patients are afraid and they don’t feel very well. They are also concerned about costs, if they need to undergo expensive care. Doctors should be able to see their patients a completely different light. In fact great doctors know that they should give the same compassion and warmth that they’d have with their own friends and family members. Finding a genuinely compassionate doctor can be quite challenging, because medical professionals are often busy and stretched thin. However, great doctors can show great care and attention, even if they can spare only a few minutes with the patient. Doctors need to have a high ethical standard, so they will apply values properly. Ethics will ensure that doctors will act properly, even if no one is looking.