The paper "From Dr. Kildare to Grey's Anatomy" (Annals of Emergency Medicine
[2010]: \(21 \mathrm{~A}-23 \mathrm{~A}\) ) describes several studies of how the
way in which doctors are portrayed on television might influence public
perception of doctors. One study was described as follows:
Rebecca Chory, Ph.D., now an associate professor of communication at West
Virginia University, began studying the effect of such portrayals on patients'
attitudes toward physicians. Using a survey of 300 undergraduate students, she
compared perceptions of physicians in 1992 - the end of the era when
physicians were shown as all-knowing, wise father figures-with those in
\(1999,\) when shows such as \(E R\) and Chicago Hope \((1994-2000)\) were
continuing the transformation to showing the private side and lives of
physicians, including vivid demonstrations of their weaknesses and
insecurities.
Dr. Chory found that, regardless of the respondents' personal experience with
physicians, those who watched certain kinds of television had declining
perceptions of physicians' composure and regard for others. Her results
indicated that the more prime time physician shows that people watched in
which physicians were the main characters, the more uncaring, cold, and
unfriendly the respondents thought physicians were.
a. Answer the following four questions for the observational study described
in this exercise. (Hint: Reviewing Examples 1.3 and 1.4 might be helpful.)
1\. What is the population of interest?
2\. Was the sample selected in a reasonable way?
3\. Is the sample likely to be representative of the population of interest?
4\. Are there any obvious sources of bias?
b. Based on the study design, do you think that the stated conclusions are
reasonable?
