【Flyer杀G作文组】2.11-ARGUMENT203-By 师大菜菜

师大菜菜UID: 2838404

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."
WORDS:462
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2011/2/11 20:04:39

The author draws the conclusion that the treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than that in larger, for-profit hospitals. To justify the conclusion, the author takes a comparison between two hospitals, one in the town of Saluda(S)
is small and nonprofit, another in the city of Megaville(M) is smaller and large and for-profit, in four aspects as the average time patient stay, the cure rate, the employees per patient and the number of complaints about hospital service. Although the comparison seems comprehensive, several logical fallacies makes the argument unpersuasive.

To begin with, the samples to be studied is too few to support the author's conclusion. In the argument, the author just analyze a single hospital for one kind of hospitals, which obviously cannot represents the general conditions of small and large, for-profit and nonprofit hospitals. It is possible that the environment of town S is very good, which attract many talent doctors. In contrast, the City M have a bad condition of security and good doctors do not like to go there. As a result, the hospital in town S is better than the one in city M, but which has no matter with their sizes , or whether they are nonprofit or for-profit. Without enough samples, the author's comparison cannot justify the conclusion.


Secondly, the author fails to prove the two hospitals are comparable in the four
aspects. We do not know the conditions about the patients of the two hospitals. If the first hospital aims to treat patients with AIDS, while the second one treat patients catching cold, then it is meaningless to compare the cure rates of the two hospitals and other aspects as mentioned above. Common sense informs us that it is more challenge to treat patients with AIDS than to treat ones with cold. In short, without accounting for possible differences about their patients between the two hospitals, the author cannot convince me that his or her conclusion is sound.

Thirdly, even if the two hospitals can represent general condition of the two kinds of hospitals , and the two hospitals are comparable, the indications that the author picks to study is cannot totally reveals the quality of treatment of a hospital. The shorter average patient stay does not necessarily come with better quality than a longer one. It is possible that short average patients stay in the first hospital is just due to its poor quality and patients do not like to stay there. The author fails to take into account these possibilities, the conclusion is unreasonable.

To sum up, the author need to take a more scientific study about the two kinds of hospitals, in which better indications and more samples is necessary. Otherwise, his or her conclusion is unconvincing.