Brian123 wrote:
Bonojit wrote:
Hello, could anyone explain why C is wrong? The argument says - The proposal to extend clinical trials, which are routinely used as systematic tests of pharmaceutical innovations, to new surgical procedures should not be implemented.
If I consider option A-it is strengthening the argument by citing a reason, which will be useful for not implementing the proposal- does not consider that new surgical procedures might be found to be intrinsically more harmful than the best treatment previously available
whereas in C- assumes that a surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life
My point is everyone upgrade their skills so if a surgeon upgrades his/her skills then it makes a valid reason for the proposal to be implemented and hence weakens the argument
would be really great if someone could explain this to me
Bonojit, I'm no expert but see if this helps you (please excuse any typos in my response, I'm extremely tired.)
1. Firstly, the question does not ask you to strengthen or weaken the argument like you've done in your analysis. An argument could be flawed in many ways, you don't necessarily have to disprove it's conclusion.
2.
Option C - The argument does not assume that surgeons do not upgrade their skills throughout their lives. That is not the point. If there is a complex new procedures and there are two surgeons that can perform the procedure on you - one is highly skilled, has years of experience, graduated from the best med school in the world, while the other surgeon will be performing his first ever procedure - you'd obviously want to go with the experiences guy, right? And obviously, their skills would differ even if they have been constantly upgrading themselves (In fact, even more so if they've been upgrading their skills). That is the point that the argument is trying to make.
3.
Option A - This is correct because it points another reason for the conclusion. In essence, the argument's stimulus regarding the skills might not even come into place if the new procedures are not approved/performed (obviously, we won't approve anything that is more harmful).
Hope this helps!
Dear Bonojit
Greetings!
I took some time to mark the right option.
Let me try to explain:
The argument says that clinical trials should not be extended to
new surgical procedures.
Why so?
The argument states that unlike a drug or a vaccine, which depends on its composition, the surgical procedure depends on the skill of the surgeon and hence the procedure itself should not be put through rigorous trial.
Well, let me give you an example here.
I saw a documentary on how, a few decades ago, some doctors and scientists, in a effort to cure brain seizures, started removing parts of the human brain which were responsible for triggering seizures. In some cases, the surgery also resulted in loss of other brain functions. The surgeons ran multiple tests to identify and isolate the right brain part to remove or disconnect from the other parts of the brain.
The brain surgery is still practiced in extreme cases and is only 60-70% successful as per Wikipedia.
Unless the surgical procedure was not rigorously tested, I am sure that even a good surgeon wouldn't be sure of which part of the brain to remove or disconnect.
Now suppose that a new surgical procedure is developed which has a better success rate of 61-75%; however, if the patient develops severe side-effects or severe loss of brain functions at a later stage-not seen in case of the previous procedure- we can safely say that the new procedure was not effective in the long run and should not be preferred.
Hence, the clinical trial of surgical procedures becomes very important.
Option C : Surgeon’s skills remain unchanged throughout the surgeon’s professional life.
On the other hands talks about the skill of the doctor.
A new surgical method can be new for all surgeons equally. If the new surgical procedure under trial is itself found to be riskier or more complicated that the current procedure, the skillset of the surgeon makes no sense at all.
Thank you.
Regards