A Practitioner of Family Medicine Begins Her Day with Five

question 32

Essay

A practitioner of family medicine begins her day with five patients needing urgent care. She does a very brief assessment of what each patient appears to need and estimates the time required of each. None of the cases is life-threatening, and so she determines to take the five in the order that they arrived at the clinic. The data for these patients, in the order they arrived, is Patient A, 30 minutes; Patient B, 40 minutes; Patient C, 10 minutes; Patient D, 50 minutes; and Patient E, 15 minutes.a. If it is now 8:00 a.m., at what time will the doctor be finished with all five of these emergencies?
b. How much time will the five patients have collectively spent waiting?
c. How much less time would have been spent waiting if the doctor had taken the patients according to shortest processing time?

---

Definitions:

Economic Efficiency

A state where resources are allocated in the most effective way possible, maximizing output without wasting any inputs, ensuring that goods and services are produced at the lowest possible cost and distributed to those who value them most.

Deregulation

The process of removing or reducing government controls and restrictions in an industry to allow for more competition and efficiency.

Pork-Barrel Politics

The allocation of government spending for localized projects secured primarily to bring money to a representative's district, often without proper consideration of the benefits or costs.

Principal-Agent Problem

The principal-agent problem occurs when there is a conflict of interest between a principal (owner or shareholder) and an agent (manager or executive) due to differing goals, with the agent potentially making decisions that benefit themselves at the expense of the principal.