How do you find out a doctors credentials?

You can check on a particular license by asking the governmental agency that issued it. You can check on all the licensure and specialty certifications of a physician or surgeon by checking with a third-party certification board.

In the United States, medical licenses are issued by the medical board of each state government. The medical license permits a physician or surgeon to practice medicine within that state. Requirements for a medical license vary somewhat from state to state but generally require a doctorate in medicine from a recognized medical school and a satisfactory residency.

Additionally, physicians and surgeons who specialize in a particular branch of medicine can be certified by an independent board. There are currently twenty-four such voluntary organizations under the umbrella of the American Board of Medical Specialties. To receive certification from these boards, a physician or surgeon pays an annual fee, verifies his or her licenses, verifies his or her training in the specialization, passes an examination in that specialty, and provides evidence of continuing education in that specialty.

Physicians and surgeons around the world follow broadly similar practices. In Mexico, for one example, the license (called the cédula profesional) is issued by the Secretaría de Educación Pública and is maintained in its Registro Nacional de Profesionistas while the certification of forty-seven specializations is overseen by the Comité Normativo Nacional de Consejos de Especialidades Médicas, A.C., a non-governmental association. Throughout Great Britain, the licensing authority is the quasi-governmental General Medical Council, which also maintains specialist registries.

The recent popularity of medical tourism has brought about a certification board at the international level. The International Board of Medicine and Surgery applies the procedures of U.S. public-health organizations as described above to the certification of physicians, surgeons, and dentists anywhere in the world. Because of the distances involved in most medical tourism, IBMS also asks of its certified members that they be financially responsible to their patients in the event of medical complications even after a patient has returned home.