Welcome to the site! This is a great place to do your research. The main thing you want with a surgeon is experience, a continuing commitment to the procedure (do many per week), and skill.
The first two can be measured in a fashion by looking at the number of procedures that they have done (experience), by how many they do per week (commitment).
The third, skill is much more difficult to gauge, since we are not experts on this and can't really tell whether something is being done correctly. You can look at secondary cues like who they trained with, with several top surgeons around the world training very good surgeons. You can also look at their results - how many of their HRs were revised, whether they have the confidence to handle and be successful with higher risk patients, and ultimately, word of mouth.
In a way the last is incomplete, since many hippys are happy to go on with their life and should do so. So they are not available to tout their surgeon. There are, though surgeons that have many happy patients who will post in sites like this, so that in itself has value.
In the end, you have to take the tools that are on here and other sites and use them to make what is a very personal decision. I think you'll find people here who have had very good experiences with either Dr. Gross or Dr. Raterman. One thing that you may want to do is to talk to both and see for yourself if you like one better than the other.
There is a list of questions that you can ask a surgeon when you speak with them that Pat put together that is very helpful. It is here:
http://www.surfacehippy.info/questionsfordoctor.phpBoth doctors have done many resurfacings, with Dr. Gross at 2200, Dr. Raterman 1500.
Dr. Raterman did a chat on this web site, here:
http://www.surfacehippy.info/raterman-chat-aug-2012.phpGood luck on your decision, also you should consider the hospital and the aftercare in the hospital itself. I think either is a good choice, with Dr. Gross having more experience.