Introduction: An educationally influential (EI) physician is one to whom colleagues look for informal clinical advice. The original nomination form created to identify EI physicians among general practitioners was published in 1978. The present research developed an updated and simplified nomination form based on a survey of specialists. Methods: A mailed questionnaire asked specialists treating neuromuscular disease to consider traits they might look for in colleagues when seeking clinical advice and rate them on a 6-point Likert-type scale. Based on study hypotheses, the traits were categorized a priori as representing one of four categories: approachability, declarative knowledge, practice-based procedural knowledge, and translational ability. The response rate among the approximately 500 specialists surveyed was 45%. Results: Practice-based procedural knowledge items were most highly rated, followed by translational ability, approachability, then declarative items. Women specialists selected a slightly different constellation of traits, including less emphasis on approachability. Performing, publishing, and even reading current research were not, on average, considered essential in an informal clinical advisor. Discussion: Colleagues identified as informal clinical advisors (ICAs) by neuromuscular specialists cannot be assumed to possess knowledge of, or be practicing according to, research evidence. Participants indicated that when they made changes in their treatment of patients, they often did so on the basis of research evidence obtained in other ways, but they did not choose ICAs on the basis of their advisor's familiarity with research-based knowledge. (Contains 3 figures and 6 tables.)