FAQ: Find a Doctor

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Question: Where can I find a doctor who specializes in treating specific diseases or conditions?

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Answer:

To find doctors who treat specific diseases or conditions, we suggest the following:

Web Sites

Telephone Suggestions

Print Directories

Contact an Author of a Journal Article

Web Sites

• - NLM MedlinePlus pages:
  
  
  • Directories of doctors, dentists, specialists, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals and facilities
    http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/directories.html
    
    
  • MedlinePlus Go Local
    Resources in local areas of the U.S. - by state or region
    http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/golocal/index.html
    
    
  • Choosing a Doctor or Health Care Service
    http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/choosingadoctororhealthcareservice.html
    
    
  • Managed Care
    http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/managedcare.html
  
  
• NIH Word on Health: Choosing a Doctor
  http://www.nih.gov/news/WordonHealth/apr2003/doctorchoosing.htm
  
  
• American Board of Medical Specialties: Is Your Doctor Board Certified?
  http://www.abms.org/Who_We_Help/Consumers/verifying.aspx
  
  
• Association of State Medical Board Executive Directors Docfinder
  http://www.docboard.org/docfinder.html
  
  
• Directory of State Medical Boards
  http://www.fsmb.org/directory_smb.html
  
  
• Medicare Participating Physician Directory
  http://www2.medicare.gov/Physician/Search/PhysicianSearch.asp
  

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Telephone Suggestions

• Phone your local county or state medical society for names of doctors and their specialties
  http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/7630.html
  
  
• Phone a hospital for names of doctors who treat specific diseases or conditions
  
  
• Phone your doctor and ask for a recommendation to a specialist
  
  
• Phone your insurance provider for a list of approved doctors and specialists
  
  
• Look in your local telephone book under "Physicians," or check an online service like Switchboard.com
  http://www.switchboard.com
  
  

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Print Directories

• Print directories are often in public, university or medical libraries. Ask a local librarian for assistance or call the NLM National Network of Libraries of Medicine for a local librarian to help you.
  http://nnlm.gov/members/
  

Contact an Author of a Journal Article

Search PubMed/MEDLINE, http://pubmed.gov, for current medical journal articles on a specific disease or condition. This can help you identify researchers, hospitals and medical schools with certain specialties. Look for the author's contact information. Please note the contact e-mail or mail address for an author may not be up to date, but it is a good way to start. Try the following:

• Search for the author name in PubMed and look for the most recent article where your author is the first author.
  
  To find out more about searching by author name, visit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?highlight=author&rid=helppubmed.section.pubmedhelp.Searching_PubMed#pubmedhelp.Searching_by_author
  
  
  • Choose the "abstract view" in the Display menu.
    
    
  • Look for the institution address under the list of author names. This is the affiliation of the primary author at the time the article went to press. Use a Web search engine to find the institution's Web page and look for a staff directory. Sometimes you may be able to find an e-mail address or phone number for a researcher.
    
    
  • Open a full-text article, if possible. Some full-text articles (especially those in PubMed Central) will list the institutional address of each individual author. This list may also include a name and e-mail address of a designated "correspondent" for that article.
    
    
  
  
• You can also use the search tools listed above for finding a specialist. For researchers that do not have an M.D. degree, ask your local librarian to check their most current biographical directories or resources for a contact address.
  
  

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Related Questions:

Finding Consumer Health Information

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http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/doctor.html

Last reviewed: 08 January 2009
Last updated: 08 January 2009
First published: 01 January 1998
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed

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