#13 - Physician: The patient is suffering either from

[tetsuya0129]

Thank you, Kelsey!

[ashpine17]

still confused as to why A doesn' twork

i thought because it was more important to treat the disease that's why stimulus went for treating for Y instead of trying to deterine whether the patient had x or y disease

[Luke Haqq]

Hi ashpine17!

In the stimulus, the physician concludes that "we must act on the assumption that the patient has a case of Y," after stating a premise that there is "not available test for distinguishing X from Y."

Answer choice (A) states, "In treating a patient who has one or the other of two diseases, it is more important to treat the diseases than to determine which of the two diseases the patient has." We're dealing with a justify the conclusion question type, and this doesn't quite get one to the conclusion that the physician ought to act on the assumption that the patient has Y. If one accepts that treatment is more important than diagnosing the disease, as in (A), it's not clear how this makes the conclusion warranted because we don't know if the path taken in the conclusion would in fact treat the disease (it wouldn't treat the disease if the patient had disease X, rather than Y).

[dshen123]

I chose E. Since the stem did not define what "circumstance" is, I assumed it could mean for doctor to change treatment plans for the patient who has the unknown disease?

E: circumstance must be changed: change from doc do not act to —--> doc act on the assumption that patient has Y