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589

50% survival rate (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

How would you scientifically measure a difference between those two definitions?

[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I mean, say this doctor has a 100% success rate but another doctor has 0%. Those two doctors collectively have a 50% success rate but it you have far better odds with the first doctor than the second

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The two doctors would only have a combined 50% success rate if they perform the same number of surgeries

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

After a certain point, it's really society's fault for letting the surgeon batting 0 continue performing surgeries.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That surgeon is bound to get one right one of these days!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It's just statistics.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

@Cenotaph Nope, say the first doctor did 100 successful cases, the other did 2 successful and 2 failed, then the collective would be (100+2)*100/104 = 98.07%

So the number of cases would matter.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

Of course. My point was only that there is definitely a difference between an individual doctor's success rate and the overall success rate of a procedure across all doctors, responding to the commment I replied to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

98.07 for the surgery in general but not if you have decided to go to the first doctor. Then the 50% chance of the second doctor doesn't not come into the equation, assuming surgery is done by the first doctor who is independent of second doctor. Hope that makes more sense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

In a statistical regression model, that would be a variable that encodes a specific individual; although encoding hypothetical (the scientific meaning of that word, not the layperson meaning) attributes of that individual is probably functionally equivalent, more useful, and easier to conduct.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Attributes of the surgeons is not easier, because you need to pick the correct attributes.

Really you just need an indicator variable showing 1 if its data from the surgeon under analysis and zero otherwise.

Then test for that indicator variable being statistically larger than 0.