Q10 - The consequences of surgical errors

[leejihyungrace]

Can someone explain to me why answer choice (B) is correct?

I chose (A) however now that I look back it, it's definitely wrong because one of the premises gives us that "General surgeons have special training and expertise that make them extremely competent to perform surgery." Thus, A would be incorrect since we need to accept the premises as true.

(B) definitely gives us what we need because it presents an alternative cause thus weakening the conclusion

(D) is out of scope because we are not considering to have surgery. We are considering whether to have surgery by a general surgeon.

But I had trouble ruling out answer choice (C) and (E)

Please correct me if I'm wrong in my analysis of the answer choices.

Thanks

[maryadkins]

Great analysis during your review of this question! You're right on.

As for (C) and (E):

(C) is also irrelevant because we're talking about whether or not surgery performed by non-general surgeons involves high risk or not. If competence doesn't guarantee outcome it doesn't really matter, because we don't need it to. The issue is whether there can be any non-general surgeons who don't necessarily come with a high degree of risk. A little risk is fine.

(E) is wrong because the flaw here isn't that we're assuming competence is the only factor--we're told in the premise that you don't want to risk surgery unless your doctor is competent. We accept that as true. We NEED competence. The flaw is that maybe people other than general surgeons are competent, too.

Hope this helps!

[matthew.mainen]

My issue with B is that it uses the word "competent" without qualification whereas the stimulus uses "extremely competent" and "highly competent."

So the argument clearly overlooks the possibility that other doctors could be exceptionally competent, but I'm not sure how we can say it overlooks the possibility that there are doctors who are merely competent.

I'd appreciate some words on this.

[JW190]

I'm still having trouble figuring out why A is wrong, especially after reading the official LSAC explanation. Here's how I understand the problem:

The conclusion is if the surgery is not performed by a general surgeon, it must involve risks (~GS > IR). The contrapositive being if a surgery does NOT involve risks, it must have been performed by a general surgeon (~IR > GS). He's able to conclude this because he believes all general surgeons are competent. However, if a general surgeon was incompetent, the surgery certainly would certainly involve risk.

Where am I going wrong? Thanks for any help!

[JW190]

I think I figured it out / answered my own question. This one was really hard for me for some strange reason. Here is my explanation below. What do you think?

The conclusion states that if a general surgeon does not perform the surgery, it will involve highly undesirable risks. The contrapositive being that if the surgery does not involve highly undesirable risks, it must be because that surgery is performed by a general surgeon. This is NOT to say that a general surgeon is sufficient to guarantee there are no undesirable risks, just that if there were no undesirable risks, it must be because a general surgeon was performing the surgery.

Why does the author say that a general surgeon is required if a surgery is to not have undesirable risks? Because the author cites that competence is necessary if a surgery does not have undesirable risks, and general surgeons are competent.

~UR > C
~C > UR

So, while competence is NECESSARY if a surgery has no undesirable risks, general surgeons are not necessarily the only doctors who are competent.

If no undesirable risks, then surgery must be performed by a competent doctor.

VS

If no undesirable risks, then surgery must be performed only by general surgeons.

___________________________________

A) Even if there were general surgeons who were incompetent, it would not hurt the overall argument. The argument never claims that if someone is competent / someone is a general surgeon, the surgery will involve no undesirable risks. So, there may be surgeons who are incompetent. It doesn't contest the conclusion that only a general surgeon must perform a surgery if there are no undesirable risks.

B) This is the correct answer as explained above. Correct.

C) First of all, "successful outcome" is probably different than "undesirable risks," but even if they were considered to be the same thing, the argument never claims that competence sufficiently guarantees a successful outcome.

D) Failing to consider other factors besides risk is not a flaw of this argument. The argument is only about what's necessary in surgery if undesirable risks are avoided.

E) This may be true, but is irrelevant here because the argument is only concerned with competence.