#1 - Of all of the surgeons practicing at the city hospital

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thanks!

[andriana.caban]

Good morning,

I narrowed it down to (D) and (A) and ultimately choose (A).

I believed the correct answer was (A) because I had assumed that if administrators are the only ones who choose the chief surgeon it would follow that they might be biased in claiming he is the best.

Can you tell me why my way of thinking was wrong and why (A) is incorrect, thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Andriana,

Since this question is a Resolve the Paradox question (notice, it asks us for an answer that goes furthest in showing that both the administrators' claim and the cited statistic might both be correct), we need to identify an answer choice that shows both (1) "he is the best surgeon currently working at the hospital" (the administrators' claim), and (2) he "has the worst record in terms of the percentage of his patients who die either during or immediately following an operation performed by him" (the cited statistic).

I completely agree with you that answer choice A suggests bias on the part of the administrators. But what this would do is undermine the administrators' claim that this surgeon is the best, when what the question stem wants is an answer that shows how they might be correct (in addition to showing how the statistic might be correct).

Answer choice D gives us the best chance of showing that both the administrators and the statistic might be correct: if the surgeon performs the operations with the inherently greatest risk to patients' lives, that would explain why so many of his patients die. It would also explain how he could still be the best surgeon currently working at the hospital: anyone else would likely have an even worse record than him with such challenging procedures.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[andriana.caban]

But what this would do is undermine the administrators' claim that this surgeon is the best

I didn't realize that until you pointed it out. It makes sense to me now, thank you!