BMJ  2007;335:207-208 (28 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39279.642836.80

Practice

Commentary: View from clinical education

Institute of Clinical Education, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This interactive case discussion is interesting from an educational viewpoint. The case presentation is one of the most complex that has featured in this series, and it attracted thoughtful responses from clinicians of many specialties and levels of experience. It was good to see a medical student reasoning his way through the dilemmas posed by this patient's presentation. Most responses showed evidence of more than a "stab in the dark" approach to diagnosis and management of the complex case.¹ Clinical reasoning approaches in the responses included generating diagnostic hypotheses and testing them; using pattern recognition; and the process of "chunking" information and constructing schema excluding some pathways and exploring others (such as acute or chronic renal failure; primary or secondary hypertension). These processes are used by experts and novices alike (in differing proportions and to different effect) in test situations.² What is less certain is how clinicians respond to complex . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Article

A patient with suspected miscarriage is found to have hypertension, renal failure, and thrombocytopenia: case outcome

Chris M Laing, Rhys Roberts, Liz Lightstone, Alison Graham, Terry H Cook, Shaun Summers, and Charles D Pusey
BMJ 2007 335: 205-206. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]