【1010G8月AW小组】【我们的小组】ARGUMENT203 by【❀雨】

verydarkUID: 2765585

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."

In this argument, the author comes to the conclusion that nonprofit hospitals are more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. To justify the claim, the author points out that the average length of a patient's stay is two days in the nonprofit hospital in the Saluda, while in the for-profit hospital in the Megaville is six days. The author also cites that the Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than the hospital in Megaville, and few complaints for patients. Close scrutiny of this argument reveals that it is unconvincing in several aspects.

First, the author unfairly equates the length of a patient's stay to the quality of treatment of a hospital. How long the patients would stay in hospitals depends on different kinds of diseases they suffered from, the severity of ills, and so on. Without giving evidence that these factors are all similar among the patients of two hospitals, the author cannot hastily conclude that a relatively shorter stay time is directly related to a better service and treatment of a hospital.

Second, the author fails to give information about the average severity of patients of both hospitals. Perhaps there exists distinction between the severities of diseases of two hospitals’ patients. Common sense informs me that illness which is less severe is more likely to be cured in a short period. Therefore, it is quite possible that the higher cure rate of Saluda hospitals is attributed to lower severities of patients who come to the hospital. Furthermore, the mere fact that Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than Megaville lends little support to the author’s conclusion. In fact, a higher employee-patient ratio might just mean that the management of the hospital has problems, and that a smaller staff of more effective, better managed people would provide better care.

Third, the mere fact that the Saluda hospital receives fewer patient complaints than Megaville’s hospital proves nothing about either efficiency or quality of care. Even though the number of complaints is smaller, the percentage of patients complaining might be higher. Also, Megaville hospital may take more actions to encourage patient feedback than Saluda hospital. This scenario accords with my observation that for-profit organizations are generally more concerned with customer satisfaction than non-profit organizations are.

Finally, even if Saluda hospital is better than Megaville hospital in several aspects, the author unfairly assumes that all nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. Perhaps the two hospitals are only a special example among the thousands of hospitals. Not given the evidence that these two hospitals are representative of all nonprofit and for-profit hospitals, I cannot take the author’s conclusion serious.

In sum, the conclusion reached in this argument is invalid and misleading. To take it logically acceptable, the author would have to substantiate that the length of patient's stay is an indicator of quality of treatment, and the average severity of two hospitals are similar. To better assess the argument, I would need more information about the condition of managing of two hospitals. I would also need to know if the two hospitals can represent all the nonprofit and for-profit hospitals.

dzlfUID: 2860023

1# verydark
I guess the setence below can replace one of the setence in the first paraph in your writing.

To justify the claim, the author points out that the average length of a patient's stay is two days in the nonprofit hospital in the Saluda, while it is six days in the for-profit hospital in Megavilla.

dzlfUID: 2860023

1# verydark

倒数第二段：
Finally, the auther assumes that the the non-profit hospital and the for-profit hospital cited above are statistically representative of overall conditions of all non-profit hospitals and all for-profit hospitals, respectively. Yet, the author has failed to prove it is the case. It is entirely possible that the hospital of Saluda is the best hospitals in all non-profit hospitals throughout the country, and the hospital of Megaville is the worst for-profit hospitals. Therefore, even if treatment in the non-profit hospital of Saluda is more ecomonical and of better quality than treatment in the for-profit hospital of Megaville, the author nontheless cannot hastely generalize that all nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals.

I'm not sure whether it is clear to write as this. Just for dicussion. Thank you for all your composittion. Today, I write this argument too and I found the model in 北美范文 unsatisfied.

verydarkUID: 2765585

3# dzlf

Thank you for your impressive comment. During the limited time I can only depends on prepared model, and I'm afraid this may bring negitive effects to my AW scores.