Clinical reasoning is either not explicitly taught or taught to more experienced learners. In this study, educators at Weill Cornell medical school assessed the impact of a theory-informed clinical reasoning curriculum for first year medical students before they’ve had much clinical experience. The curriculum consisted of a lecture on concepts of dual process theory, script theory and cognitive biases, and 3 days of clinical reasoning exams where students reviewed History and Physical write ups (without the assessment and plan) and generated problem lists, summary statements, and leading and alternative diagnoses with rationale and illness scripts. The study found that 80% of students had a complete problem representation, 63% of problem representations were concise, and 92% of problem representations included semantic qualifiers, suggesting that clinical reasoning can be successfully taught to inexperienced learners. Whether this translates into improved performance during clerkships remains to be seen. — Sarang Kim, MD
Justin J. Choi, Jeanie Gribben, Myriam Lin, Erika L. Abramson & Juliet Aizer (2023) Using an experiential learning model to teach clinical reasoning theory and cognitive bias: an evaluation of a first-year medical student curriculum, Medical Education Online, 28:1, DOI: 10.1080/10872981.2022.2153782