Twenty-three years ago, New York introduced what would become one of its most enduringly popular features: the peer-selected “Best Doctors in New York” list. Its basic appeal doesn’t require much explanation: What better way to find a doctor, when you need one, than consulting the compiled opinions of 50,000 or so local medical professionals? (For a fuller explanation of how the list is assembled, click here.)
Over those 23 years, much has changed about this magazine, including our recent shift to biweekly publication. Or nearly biweekly: Three times this year, an extra magazine will appear in your mailbox or on your newsstand between the regular issues. You’re reading the first of those three. (The others, reflecting the polyglot nature of this place, won’t look much like this: One will be devoted to home entertaining in its many guises, and the other will be a kind of megacatalogue arriving just before the holidays.) Although it draws on the structure and DNA of New York, it’s in many ways its own magazine—a close cousin, let’s say—with its own three-part structure. “Intake,” the opening section (offering a guide to better sleep, a story on selling health care to hipsters, and more); the features (including a story on a new painkiller that has ER doctors worried and a memoir by TV reporter Miles O’Brien, who recently lost his arm after an accident); and the “Best Doctors” listings. And, at the very back—lest an issue without a crossword seem off-balance—there’s a puzzle by our regular constructor, Cathy Allis, built on a medical theme. It’s the perfect way to pass the time in your new doctor’s waiting room.