Business-University Collaboration in Designing Work-Based Activities Fostering Clinical Reasoning

A gap has been identified between the knowledge and skills needed in the labor market and those acquired at Higher Education Institutions. Under the Think4Jobs project, a series of focus groups (FG) were carried out with professionals (veterinarians and university professors), and Veterinary Medicine students at the end of the academic pathway, to identify putative mismatches in critical thinking skills. Based on the FG results, the University of Évora and the Hospital Veterinário do Atlântico partnered to design blended-learning activities to be developed in piloting courses, aiming to reinforce the development of critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills. This Business-University collaboration brought work-based scenarios to some courses’ curricula, representing problems that professionals face daily in their practice. The problematization request the students in a clinical course to engage in high order thinking processes to reach a diagnosis, propose a corrective strategy, and anticipate the response to their intervention. In addition, these learning scenarios will enable the development of clinical and technical skills, and enhance autonomy as they have the potential to bridge the pilot courses to short-term intramural internships This paper describes the rationale leading to the construction of a framework proposed to be applied in clinical courses in the field of Veterinary Medicine, by business and university representatives, showcasing one activity using the proposed framework.