To be clear, I'm not at all suggesting that doctors do this out of malice - only that effective statistical analysis is really, really, hard, and it's not immediately clear that surgeons (regardless of their international reputation) would have the background required to properly analyze these studies in a coherent framework, especially when it's not immediately relevant to a patients outcome in an operating theatre.
I'm not suggesting that they're ignorant of basic statistical facts, but I am definitely suggesting that they're not immediately aware of the subtle assumptions implicit in many of the statistical models they use.
For example, given the large numbers we're talking about, not only is it possible that the "number 1" hospital in any particular field is there because of statistical fluke, it's actually likely that this is the case.
The (mis)use of statistics certainly isn't limited to medicine, but it is one of the places where its misinterpretation has the biggest impact.