Thank you in advance.
The following appeared in an article in the health section of a newspaper.
"There is a common misconception that university hospitals are better than community or private hospitals. This notion is unfounded, however: the university hospitals in our region employ 15 percent fewer doctors, have a 20 percent lower success rate in treating patients, make far less overall profit, and pay their medical staff considerably less than do private hospitals. Furthermore, many doctors at university hospitals typically divide their time among teaching, conducting research, and treating patients. From this it seems clear that the quality of care at university hospitals is lower than that at other kinds of hospitals."
Premise 1 : the local university hospitals employ 15 percent fewer doctors, have a 20 percent lower success rate in treating patients, make far less overall profit, and pay medical staff considerably less than do private ones.
Premise 2 : Many doctors at university hospitals typically divide their time among teaching, conducting research, and treating patients.
Conclusion : The quality of care at university hospitals is lower than that at other kinds of hospitals .
Unstated premises: university hospitals in this region are representative of all university hospitals
In this argument, the author concludes that the quality of care at university hospitals is lower than that at other kinds of hospitals such as community or private ones. To support this conclusion, the author cites some facts at university hospitals in a region that the local university hospitals have 15 percent fewer doctors, have a 20 percent lower success rate in treating patients, make less profit and pay medical staff significantly less than do privates ones and that doctors at university hospitals typically divide their time among teaching, conducting research, and treating patients. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumption for which there is no evidence. Hence, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that the university hospitals in the region are representative of all university hospitals. This statement is a stretch, the author does not give any more information how are the same between university hospitals and other ones outside the region. It could be true that the local hospitals are actually very poor because of lacking of funds from the government but it is not the case for other university hospitals in other regions. The argument could been much more clearer if it explicitly stated how the university hospitals in the region are representative of all university hospitals.
Second, the argument claims that the local university hospitals have 15 percent fewer doctors, have a 20 percent lower success rate in treating patients, make less profit and pay medical staff significantly less than do privates ones and that doctors at university hospitals typically divide their time among teaching, conducting research, and treating patients. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the author does not demonstrate any correlation between these indicators and the quality of care. For example, the patients who have very serious illness prefer the university hospitals rather than other community or private ones because of the quality of care but since serious illness tends to have less percentage of success. That is why the university hospitals have lower success rate in treating patients. In addition, although doctors at university hospitals spend their time in several tasks such as conducting research, teaching and treating patients, it does not mean they are poor at caring patients. Whether these indicators are reliable for citing the quality of caring at the hospitals. Without convincing evidence to this question, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantiate evidence. As the result, the conclusion has no legs to stand on.
In summary, the argument is flawed for above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author mentioned all relevant facts. In order to access the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. In this case, how the university hospitals are representative of all university hospitals and whether the factors mentioned are good indicators for the quality of care in the university hospitals should be showed. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and opens to debate.
541 words.
