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本帖最后由 seagullhere 于 2009-3-7 00:57 编辑
TOPIC: ARGUMENT203 - The following appeared in a newspaper feature story.
"At the small, nonprofit hospital in the town of Saluda, the average length of a patient's stay is two days; at the large, for-profit hospital in the nearby city of Megaville, the average patient stay is six days. Also, the cure rate among patients in the Saluda hospital is about twice that of the Megaville hospital. The Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than the hospital in Megaville, and there are few complaints about service at the local hospital. Such data indicate that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals."
The author concludes that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger,for-profit hospitals. I find the conclusion is highly questionable because the reasons provided by the author are unconvincing ,and the comparison is only between two hospitals which is rather limited.
To begin with, the length of a patient's stay as well as the cure rate among patients cannot indicate that the medical quality. Both of them largely depend on the kind of diseases one suffers from. Without informationabout patient's diseases and physical conditions, the comparison is meaningless.It is possible that patients in the Saluda hospital only suffer from some minor diseases such as colds and headache.On the contrast, most of patients in the Megaville hospital suffer from the more severe diseases who even need to have a surgery or a relatively long treatment.Thus,it is granted for them to stay longer in hospital. At the same time, according to the data,from another perspective, perhaps just because the larger hospital have more excellent doctors and advanced medical facilities, more patients who are badly ill prefer to choose the hospital in Megaville. Thus, without considering those likelihoods, it is too premature of the author to come to the conclusion.
Furthermore, we are only informed that the Saluda hospital has more employees per patient, however, what we care about more is their work efficiency as well as their medical skills. It is entirely possible that the employees' work efficiency and medical skills in the Saluda hospital is much lower than that in the Megavill hospital because the larger, for-profit hospital might be able to offer employees higher salary which can be more likely to attract excellent employees.Therefore,the more employees per patient cannot be regarded as a superior in the Saluda hospital.In addition,the author only tells us there are few complaints about service at the local hospital, however, what about the complaints about service in the nearby city of Megaville? Without the sufficient information and the complete comparison, we have every reason to think that the service in the Megaville hospital is also very good or even better.
Last but not the least, granted that the foregoing evidences can support the conclusion that Salary hospital is more economical and of better quality than the Megaville hospital, however, it is not reasonable of the author to draw the final conclusion only based on the two hospitals. Can them present all the hospitals which are of the same kind? Certainly not. Clearly,much more solid evidences are required showing the medical conditions,the service,the treatment quality and so forth in many other larger and for-profit as well as smaller no-profit hospitals.
To sum up,to strengthen the argument, the author should choose broad enough samples randomly contain the same number of the larger and for-profit hospitals and smaller no-profit hospitals,and then compare them completely in nearly all aspects.Otherwise, the conclusion is highly dubious and cannot be accepted by me. |
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