Surgeries go better with experienced doctors

If you need a risky, complicated surgery, would you go to a hospital or surgeon who had performed the procedure only a time or two before?

Most people would say no, but the evidence indicates otherwise. Patients do go to doctors and hospitals that have seldom performed the procedures they need. Yet, for almost 40 years, study after study has shown that patients’ death rates were significantly lower for surgeries done at hospitals that were experienced in the procedure.

The same is true for physicians. In March, for example, a large study of patients undergoing thyroid surgeries found that they...