Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Blake Williams
NURS 310
Jan. 17 2018
CLINICAL REASONING- A STUDENT PERSPECTIVE 2
Introduction
As a first semester nursing student I have been surprised at the difference between
nursing curriculum and the curricula that I have experience in the pre-requisite classes leading up
to nursing school. The pre-requisite classes were mostly based on information. Which
endogenous neurotransmitters binds to beta 1 receptors on the heart? The answer is straight
forward. If you know the information, you will do well in the class. Nursing classes on the other
hand are focused much more on taking the knowledge that we have learned and applying it. Raw
knowledge alone is not of much use to a nurse, a nursing student must learn to process the
information they are given, make connections, and solve problems. For this reason, nursing
courses so far have not been focused as much on what to know and what to think, but on how to
Clinical Reasoning
Clinical reasoning is the ability to apply critical thinking into a clinical setting. According
to the article A Concept Analysis of Critical Thinking: A Guide for Nurse Educators To think
critically is to have the “ability to apply higher-order cognitive skills… and the disposition to be
deliberate about thinking… that lead to action that is logical and appropriate” (Von Colln-
Appling & Giuliano, 2016). This means that memorizing facts is not good enough for nurses.
Nursing students need to realize that they are going into an occupation where they hold people’s
lives in their hands and in order to provide the necessary care a nurse must have the ability to
think logically, to cluster relevant data, to notice trends, and apply classroom knowledge to
health care. Paraphrasing from our textbook: the nature of nursing practice demands advanced
thinking, so that a nurse can correctly take in huge amounts of information from a patient, think
CLINICAL REASONING- A STUDENT PERSPECTIVE 3
through it along with the medical knowledge that the nurse has acquired and make appropriate
To develop the skill of clinical reasoning one must develop their ability to critically think.
What is critical thinking? “the art of thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking so you
make your thinking more clear, precise, accurate, relevant, consistent, and fair” (Castaldi, Yoost,
& Crawford, 216, p. 56). That is how critical thinking and clinical reasoning is developed, it
takes deliberate, repetitive, effort in order to grow this skill. A nursing student who understands
critical thinking and clinical reasoning knows that the learning is never done because they will
continue to learn and refine their skills throughout their career. With that being said they must
start immediately in practicing this skill so that they can gain the ability to think critically. This
skill will elevate their performance in school, and allow them to have a successful career and
Works Cited
Von Colln-Appling, C., & Giuliano, D. (2016, November 15). A concept analysis of critical
thinking: A guide for nurse educators. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0260691716302611
Castaldi, P. A., Yoost, B. L., & Crawford, L. R. (2016). Study guide for Fundamentals of
nursing: active learning for collaborative practice. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.