Premium
Teaching clinical reasoning – a preliminary controlled study
Author(s) -
Round A P
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2923.1999.00352.x
Subject(s) - judgement , observational study , intervention (counseling) , clinical judgement , psychology , medical education , teaching method , medicine , mathematics education , family medicine , psychiatry , pathology , political science , law
Background The formal and explicit teaching of clinical reasoning is rarely undertaken in medical schools despite widespread recognition that knowledge acquisition alone may be insufficient to develop good clinical judgement. Previous work studying the effects of such teaching is inconclusive. Design and methods A controlled observational study of 4th year medical students considered the effect of a brief teaching intervention on clinical reasoning skills. A validated measure of clinical reasoning – the diagnostic thinking inventory – was used as the outcome measure. Results Students participating in the teaching intervention performed significantly better on the diagnostic thinking inventory than control students. Conclusion Further research is necessary to evaluate the long‐term impact of such teaching.