Although the ration of physicians to total population is about the same in US and canada, US has 33% more surgeons per capita.Clearly, this is the reason people in US undergo 40% more operations per capita than do Canadians. The explaination given above rests on an assumption that:
A, patients in US do not have a greater need for surgery than do patients in Canada.
B, the population of US is not larger than that of Canada.
C, US patients sometimes travel to Canada for certain kinds of surgery.
D, general practitioners in US do not as a rule examine a patient who is a candidate for surgery before sending the patient to a surgeon
E, there are no unnecessary surgical operations performed in Canada.