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From: safire on 27 Aug 2008 06:13
"A college classmate, a physician with a low opinion of his profession,
advised me to forget the numbers, to visit both surgeons, look them in
the eye and decide which one I liked.

Huh? Why should I care? I wasn�t drinking a beer with the guy. Partly,
my friend said, a likable surgeon would respond if something went wrong;
an arrogant one might not admit a mistake. And partly, well, my friend
really couldn�t articulate it, but he felt certain.

�Likable� and �surgeon� don�t ordinarily cohabit a sentence, but when my
wife and I met with the robotics surgeon, we loved him. Patient,
personable and the furthest thing from arrogant, he told us how his
technique had improved from his first 200 operations to his second 200.
(I was No. 431.) Only twice, he said, in Nos. 4 and 17, had the robotics
failed and he had proceeded to the more intrusive surgery. His
percentage of complications, he added, was as low as at Hopkins. I
canceled my appointment in Baltimore."



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/health/views/26case.html
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