The time at which a rational patient chooses to undergo an elective medical procedure for a non-life-threatening ailment is contemplated. The resulting model is purposely uncomplicated but general, and accounts for several basic factors that might affect such a decision. One such factor is that a patient cannot know with certainty the degree to which the medical procedure will be successful. Even so, patients have information about the expected outcome of the procedure and its risk, and about how the expected outcome and risk are affected by medical technological progress and surgeon experience. The effect of changes in exogenous variables on the timing of the medical procedure and on patient expected lifetime utility are investigated. It is shown that risk averse and prudent patients behave in an unambiguous manner in response to changes in all of the exogenous variables.

考虑到理性患者选择接受非危及生命疾病的选择性医疗程序的时间。由此产生的模型故意简单但通用，并考虑了可能影响此类决策的几个基本因素。一个这样的因素是患者不能确定地知道医疗程序将成功的程度。即便如此，患者仍了解手术的预期结果及其风险，以及医疗技术进步和外科医生经验如何影响预期结果和风险。研究了外生变量的变化对医疗程序时间和患者预期终生效用的影响。