It just has to do with circumstances. Like I said I don't have many (any?) choices nearby and the pdocs closest to here that I know of I have encountered professionally and know they do things I don't want. There's a city about an hour away where I see my therapist (and where I lived when I started seeing my pdoc, also in that city). But I had a terrible experience with a pdoc there and ultimately decided I need someone who specializes in hard to treat cases, which my pdoc does. When my pdoc moved practices (and I moved) I could have tried to find someone else but the truth is that nobody is going to treat me the way she does (b/c she remains aware that I am hard to treat, have a very difficult form of bipolar, etc). So I've stayed with her. And in pay-off I get an hour to an hour and a half a month with her, email contact, my pdoc works for the same hospital system where I go IP so if I'm IP she's still involved in my care, and I have someone managing my really complicated med situation. She also does things like make sure every possible option was tried before clozaril which is really important to me (but she did not keep trying meds that she knew wouldn't work or would just have a repeat of movement disorders since I've had that several times).

All I can say is that she's worth it. I don't know how many pdocs are, but she is.

Since you are in Boston if I were you I'd be heading for some of those top hospitals there. McClaren? Something like that? It's even higher ranked than my hospital which is very high (and I also think that matters). I won't go somewhere not ranked fairly high and that isn't a teaching hospital b/c that combination seems to produce drs who are really up on what is going on.