QJM vol. 97 no. 9 © Association of Physicians 2004; all rights reserved.
Commentary |
Critical thinking and critical appraisal: the chicken and the egg?
From the 1Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queens University, Belfast, and 2Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
| Introduction |
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Having attended the first National Workshop on Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine (Oxford, 1995), one of us actually has the T-shirt declaring his critical appraisal credentials. But although trained in clinical epidemiology, both before and since the workshop, the same person continues daily to doubt his critical thinking skills. The profusion of mini-guides and short courses in Critical Appraisal and Evidence-Based Practice has enriched our curricula for over a decade,1 but perhaps basic skills of critical thought should take precedence in developing our day-to-day practice, which is rather less informed by the published evidence than we would care to admit.
Although the term critical thinking was used in the General Medical Council's 1993 edition of Tomorrow's Doctors, it has now been dropped in favour of phrases such as: an ability to gain, assess, apply and integrate new knowledge ... ; or an ability to integrate and critically evaluate evidence ...
| Cognitive concepts and their application to clinical judgment |
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| Strategies for problem solving and hypothesis testing |
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| Analysing arguments |
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Address correspondence to Professor F. Kee, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queen's University Belfast. Mulhouse Building, Grosvenor Road, Belfast BT 12 6BJ. e-mail: f.kee@qub.ac.uk
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