So who do you nominate to be operated on by the surgeons exactly 1/5 of the way through their career? The poor? The desperate? How about those over the hill

So who do you nominate to be operated on by the surgeons exactly 1/5 of the way through their career? The poor? The desperate? How about those over the hill all the way over at 7/8ths through? The guy who has only done this procedure twice before, shall we have him work only on the mentally deficient who don't know any better? By definition we cannot all have the best surgeon (and there is one). Therefore you can only ration access to this "best" surgeon in one of three ways: need, luck, or money. Personally I'd rank them in that order in terms of sense - and none of them truly involve patient choice. Metrics are great for use internally, as oversight. They allow hospitals to assess doctors, to help doctors, to improve practices and better themselves. As a "consumer" of healthcare I think they're mostly damaging.