Question

Rude surgeons, Is a friendly surgeon a better surgeon? In a study of more than $32,000$

surgical patients from $7$ different medical centers, researchers classified surgeons by the number of unsolicited complaints that had been recorded about their behavior. The researchers found that surgical complications were significantly more common in patients whose surgeons had received the most complaints, compared with patients whose surgeons had received the fewest complaints. What conclusion can we draw from this study? Explain your reasoning.

Short answer

The more complaints a surgeon received, the more patients with surgical complaints they had (in general).

Step-by-step solution

Given information

A study of more than $32,000$ surgical patients from $7$ different medical centers.

Explanation

Individuals are purposely subjected to a treatment to study their reactions in an experiment.

Observational research attempts to collect data without interfering with the scene being seen. A hidden variable has a significant impact on the relationship between variables in a study but is not one of the explanatory factors investigated.

According to the findings, the more complaints a surgeon received, the more patients with surgical difficulties he or she had ( Generally).

However, because the study is an observational study (with no treatments imposed on the subjects), we cannot conclude that the complaints are the cause of the surgical complications (or that the surgical complications are the cause of the complaints), and there are likely to be hidden variables that influence the results.

For example, the number of years a surgeon has worked may have an impact on both complications and complaints, because the longer a surgeon has worked, the more probable he or she has received complaints and has patients with surgical issues. As a result, the number of work years appears to be a hidden variable.