WEEK 3 - CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE

Question 1

CONSIDER THE PATIENT SITUATION

Answer 1

• Describe or list facts, context, objects or people.

Question 2

COLLECT CUES/INFORMATION

Answer 2

· Review Current information (e.g. handover reports, patient history, patient charts)
· Gather new information (e.g. undertake patient assessment)
· Recall knowledge (e.g. physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology,epidemiology, therapeutics, the context of care, ethics, law etc)

Question 3

PROCESS INFORMATION

Answer 3

· Interpret: analyse data to come to an understanding of signs or symptoms. Compare normal VS abnormal.
· Discrimination: distinguish relevant from irrelevant information; narrow down the information to what is most important and recognise gaps in cues collected.
· Relate: discover new relationships or patterns; cluster cues together to identify relationships between them.
· Infer: make deductions of form opinions that follow logically by interpreting subjective and objective cues; consider alternatives and consequences.
· Match current situation to past situations or current patient to past patients (usually an expert thought process)
· Predict an outcome (usually an expert thought process)

Question 4

IDENTIFY PROBLEMS/ISSUES

Answer 4

· Synthesise facts and inferences to make a definitive diagnosis of the patient’s problem.

Question 5

ESTABLISH GOALS

Answer 5

· Describe what you want to happen, a desired outcome, a time frame.

Question 6

TAKE ACTION

Answer 6

Select a course of action between different alternatives available.

Question 7

EVALUATE OUTCOMES

Answer 7

Evaluate the effectiveness of actions and outcomes. Ask; ‘has the situation improved? How?’

Question 8

REFLECT ON PROCESS AND NEW LEARNING

Answer 8

· Contemplate what you have learnt from this process and what you would do differently next time.