title: Clinical reasoning - a guide to improving teaching and practice.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The process of clinical reasoning is undertaken by all clinicians, often automatically, and is the cognitive process that underlies diagnosis and management of a patient's presenting problem. The teaching of clinical reasoning can pose a challenge to the clinical teacher.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article reviews the process of clinical reasoning and provides the teacher with a framework to teach clinical reasoning to students and junior doctors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Education, Medicine Learning and Teaching Unit, The University of Adelaide, South Australia. andrew.linn@adelaide.edu.au
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Linn
authors.forename: Carole
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Khaw
authors.forename: Hugh
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kildea
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tonkin
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011340:Problem Solving