"It is important that the clinical teacher teaches trainees the specific skills sets of the expert general practitioner (e.g. synthesising skills, recognising prototypes, focusing on cues and clues, using community resources and dealing with uncertainty) in order to promote clinical reasoning in the context of general practice or family medicine. Clinical teachers need to understand their own reasoning processes as well as be able to convey that knowledge to their trainees. They also need to understand the developmental stages of clinical reasoning and be able to nurture each trainee's own expertise. Strategies for facilitating effective clinical reasoning in trainees include adequate exposure to patients, offering the trainees opportunity for reflection and feedback, and coaching on the techniques of reasoning in the general practice context."
"The clinical teaching and learning environment is an ideal field for using adult learning theories and demonstrating their utility. Reinforcing clear thinking in both teacher and learner and considering them should improve clinical learning, and even clinical outcomes."
By considering clinical reasoning as a skill to be learnt rather than a concept to be understood, a framework for teaching this skill can be developed. The learner initially observes a consultation by the teaching clinician, followed by the teacher explaining the reasoning processes used including hypothesising, hypothesis testing, re-analysis and differential diagnosis. The student then comments on the reasoning of the teacher in a subsequent consultation, followed by feedback from the teacher on the student's reasoning in a third consultation.
"Teaching clinical reasoning is important and feasible. Teachers who explicitly teach problem solving and decision making may help learners to improve their diagnostic accuracy and treatment choices."
The site has been designed to increase understanding of important and sometimes difficult concepts and principles in Clinical Pharmacology. It is not intended to be comprehensive for all aspects of Clinical Pharmacology teaching. It has been developed using Macromedia Flash to enable user interaction.
"The process described in this article provides detailed and specific teaching feedback for the observed teaching attending while prompting the observing faculty to reflect on their own teaching style and to borrow effective teaching techniques from the observation."
By considering clinical reasoning as a skill to be learnt rather than a concept to be understood, a framework for teaching this skill can be developed.
"We suggest that the making thinking visible approach has potential to assist educators to become more reflective about their clinical reasoning teaching and acts as a scaffold to assist them to articulate their own expert reasoning and for students to access and use."
There is a need for a cultural change in clinical education, in which those involved with the professional training of healthcare professionals perceive teaching as more than the transmission of knowledge and technical skills. Process-oriented teaching practices that integrate technology as part of a carefully designed curriculum may have the potential to facilitate the development of capable healthcare graduates who are able to navigate the complexity of health systems and patient management in ways that go beyond the application of knowledge and skills.
Computer-based teaching (CBT) is a well-known educational device, but it has never been applied systematically to the teaching of a complex, rare, genetic disease, such as Hunter disease (MPS II). Aim: To develop interactive teaching software functioning as a virtual clinic for the management of MPS II.
"COMFORT is an acronym that stands for the basic principles of palliative care communication and comprises seven modules (Communication, Orientation/Opportunity, Mindfulness, Family, Openings, Relating, Team). These communication skills training modules are designed to highlight interprofessional care and communication. Each module of the COMFORT curriculum can stand alone as a teaching activity or can be integrated into a new or existing course. Modules C (narrative clinical communication) and F (family caregivers) provide beginner level instruction, while M (mindfulness), O/O (orientation), and T (team) provide intermediate instruction and O (openings) and R (relating) provide advanced communication skills and are intended for learners who have clinical observation experience."
"The tips incorporate educational theory, practical information and ideas for implementation. Each topic is of high interest to doctors who are teaching in their practice. Intrinsic to the resource is the recognition that the clinical environment provides enormous opportunities for effective experiential learning."
Despite the relative brevity of the intervention, our course appeared to be effective in improving diagnostic performance in simulated clinical reasoning skills problems, as measured by the CRP, and was generally well received by students.
"Students are taught to (1) ask focused clinical questions, (2) search the biomedical research literature (PubMed) for the most recent and highest level of evidence, (3) critically evaluate the evidence, and (4) make clinical judgments about the applicability of the evidence for their patients."
"The renewed emphasis on clinical skills in medical education comes at a time when there is also increasing focus on the need to provide better care for populations that experience health disparities.2,3,10 SPs provide a unique opportunity to meet both the general goals of medical education in developing students' clinical skills and goals specific to enhancing and evaluating students' knowledge, attitudes, and skills with regard to patients with disabilities."
"Here, I would like to draw on my experience as a learner as well as an educator, together with the available literature, to draw up a simple 12-step teaching strategy that should help the ward round serve the dual purpose of teaching medical students and junior doctors."
"The curriculum introduces a simple, stepwise framework for delivering high-value care and focuses on teaching trainees to incorporate high-value, cost-conscious care principles into their clinical practice. It consists of ten 1-hour, case-based, interactive sessions designed to be flexibly incorporated into the existing conference structure of a residency training program."