Developing Clinical Judgement: A Case Scenario Approach

Abstract

The purpose of this book is to provide healthcare students with a resource that will assist them to apply their knowledge and skills to clinical scenarios in order to develop clinical judgement. Clinical judgement is the application of critical thinking and reasoning to healthcare situations and its development takes practice, lots of practice! In healthcare professions, it is the application of knowledge and skills that is required in order to become a competent clinician. Thus, this book is designed to challenge students to consider not only what they know about patient care in certain situations, but also what they will do with that knowledge. I call this the 'action step' and I have written this book expressly to help students to move from what they know about health and health care to the actions they will perform in a variety of clinical situations. The idea for this book came from feedback I received from students that 'off the cuff' clinical scenarios that I regularly used in classroom discussions were really valuable in helping them to see how to apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills in real clinical situations.