For physicians confronted with ethical dilemmas (e.g., end-of-life issues or treatment of patients without insurance), many hospitals provide ethics consultation services. However, not all physicians take advantage of these services and some refuse to use ethics consultation. The extent to which doctors refuse ethics consults was studied in the Journal of Medical Ethics (Vol. 32, 2006). Survey questionnaires were administered to all physicians on staff at a large community hospital in Tampa, Florida, and 118 physicians responded. Several qualitative variables were measured, including previous use of ethics consultation ("never used" or "used at least once"), practitioner specialty ("medical" or "surgical"), and future use of ethics consultation ("yes" or "no").
a. Access the file and generate a graph that describes the level to which the physicians on staff have previously used the ethics consultation services. What proportion of the sampled physicians have never used ethics consultation?
b. Repeat part a for future use of ethics consultation. What proportion of the sampled physicians state that they will not use the services in the future?
c. Generate side-by-side graphs that illustrate differences in previous use of ethics consultation by medical and surgical specialists. What inference can you make from the graphs?
d. Repeat part c for future use of ethics consultation.