Your hospital has received an extra budget allowance this month, allowing either one life saving heart transplant operation for an eight year old child, or 100 hip replacements. Which do you choose and why?

An ethics question such as this is a common medical school interview question. It is important to appreciate there is no definite right answer, this is merely testing your ability to weigh up both sides of an ethical argument and come to an informed decision, explaining it as you work it through. 

Factors that may influence your decision might include the average age of the patients and therefore the amount of year's of use the treatment will get, whether the treatments can be postponed for the future, the social value of the patients, whether extension of life is more important than improved quality of life etc. Argue for and against on both points but try to be succient. It would be worth looking up terms such as utilitarianism and social value for future discussions. 

RH
Answered by Robert H. Medical School Preparation tutor

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