#200 : Thanks for your comments in advance!!

[Hauser]

200. Statistics collected from dentists indicate that three times more men than women faint while visiting the dentist. This evidence suggests that men are more likely to be distressed about having dental work done than women are. Thus, dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the male consumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.




The author claims that when dentists advertise, they should target male customers with the emphasis on anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to customers’ feelings. In order to support the claim, he points out the statistics that indicate the higher frequency of fainting of men than women during the visit to dental office. However, a careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s claim.

First, the author fails to provide demographics of the statistics and other details. Were the men and women that the statistics refer to were patients? Did the statistics rule out the fact that the subjects had any preexisting medical conditions to cause the fainting that were irrelevant to their fear of dental treatment? It is possible that the male subjects happen to have more traumatic incidents in relation to dental treatment than female subjects. Without the details of the demographics of the subjects, the author’s claim cannot be justified.

Secondly, there is no evidence to support the correlation between fainting and distress about dental work. It is possible that the fainting of patients was the result of preexisting medical condition or due to the dentist’s poor anesthetic techniques. Also, it is presumptuous to assume that the patient’s distress is caused by the patient’s fear of dental treatment. Perhaps, the distress is from financial burden as the dental treatment fee is too high or lack of parking space of the dental office where patients’ cars are frequently towed away during their treatment.

Lastly, the author does not provide information to support that advertisement should target male customers with the emphasis of anesthetic techniques and staffs’ sensitivity to patients’ feelings. If female patients are less fearful of dental treatment than male patients, it is more likely that female patients seek for dental treatment than male patients. Therefore, if the dental office wants to attract patients, it is possible that advertisement targeting women patients fulfill their purpose. Or if male customers’ distress is caused by financial burden or something else, it will be wiser to lower the dental treatment fee or address the very issues that cause distress in male customers.

In sum, without ruling out the all the above mentioned scenarios, the author’s claim remains unconvincing. In order to better assess the claim, the following information would be helpful to know: (1) details of demographics of the sample of the survey that resulted in the statistics; (2) evidence to support the correlation between fainting and distress as well as the author’s assumption that patients’ distress is about dental treatment and (3) information to validate the author’s conclusion of having advertisement to target male customers and to emphasize anesthetic technique with the staffs’ capacity to empathize patients.

[rockybalboa123]

Hello Hauser, I found some really good points in your argument. Especially the point that states, may be men faint because of financial burden.

Here some other points, Please do comment on them as I am also a beginner.
1. The author hasnt mentioned that during what kind of treatment did the patients fainted, its important to these details because the dental work could of many classifications for eg. orthopedic work, root canal surgery... etc. May be the women patients have undergone comparitively not so pain-giving dental work and men underwent some critical dental treatment.

2. Its important to know that are the dentists and the patients from same geographical part of the world? May be a British patient might faint when he gets a treatment from a Indian Doctor.... ( I am not very sure of this point.. Please comment if its good enough to be written.)


I liked your approach to consolidate things in the last para.. I beileve the structure was also very good.. it seemed like a story..

Best of Luck.
Please do reply.