What Is Clinical Reasoning?

Internal medicine physicians like to pride ourselves on our clinical reasoning – the ability to talk to any patient, pluck out seemingly random bits of information, and make a mystery diagnosis. But how does this actually work? In this episode, called The History, I’ll be joined by Gurpreet Dhaliwal as we explore the beginnings of our understanding on how clinical reasoning works – starting in the middle of the 19th century with polar tensions between two ways of approaching our patients that are still felt today. Along the way, we’ll talk about the American Civil War, Car Talk, Sherlock Holmes, and whether the practice of medicine can ever be considered a science.

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Sources:

• Fitzgerald F, Curiosity. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/0003-4819-130-1-199901050-00015
• Montgomery K, How Doctors Thinks (amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/How-Doctors-Think-Clinical-Judgment/dp/0195187121)
• Da Costa J, Medical Diagnosis, 1864. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23402241M/Medical_diagnosis