Teaching Clinical Reasoning is More Like Detective Work Than You Might Imagine.

When supervising a medical student or a doctor in training, it is useful to know the different stages of clinical reasoning in order to identify at what stage the learner encounters a difficulty in making the right decision. Is he having trouble characterizing the clinical problem ? Is he generating the right hypotheses that are adapted to the data collection ? Is it a problem of verification of assumptions ? Of interpreting the data ? Of presumptive diagnosis or a poor choice of an intervention plan ? By making a pedagogical diagnosis, the supervisor will be more effective in adapting his recommendations in a more targeted way to the specific difficulties of the student or young colleague.