问一道语法题

phylliceUID: 2270062

我弄不出来下划线，所以用括号代替了。请各位别介意。
A recent study has found that within the past few years ,many doctors( had elected early retirement rather than face)      the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

答案选E.OG的解释上说to retire 和 （to understood ） face是parallelism的。可是怎么理解这个 to understood face啊？这里的 face 不是动词“面对”的意思吗?

谢谢各位的解答