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 processing-time data for these patients, in the order they arrived, are: Patient A, 50 minutes; Patient B, 10 minutes; Patient C, 40 minutes; Patient D, 30 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?

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The Answer of 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 processing-time data for these patients, in the order they arrived, are: Patient A, 50 minutes; Patient B, 10 minutes; Patient C, 40 minutes; Patient D, 30 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?

A Practitioner of Family Medicine Begins Her Day with Five