Thinking in Medicine
Thinking in Medicine
This chapter provides an overall description of clinical thinking. Clinical epidemiology, decision-making tools, and associated mathematics are important, but thinking about individual patients is also vital for the clinician. Clinicians think about individual patients. What should one do? Why is the patient like this now? All of this information is compared to a growing knowledge base from experience. It is important to examine and re-examine records, images, and lab work and to think the case through. While working, the clinician needs to focus on one thing at a time. The chapter also presents an in-depth discussion of what thinking is and what thought is about. Thinking is about processes. The case from Chapter 2 is used as an extended example for this discussion. The impact of fear on thinking is also addressed.
Keywords: clinical epidemiology, clinical thinking, individuals, process, fear
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