Critical Thinking in Health Sciences

Abstract

Critical thinking is defined as active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge. Although of paramount importance for medical and para-medical students, it has often been ignored in the medical curriculum. Structured thinking through knowledge of critical thinking can be helpful in a variety of clinical conditions, such as communicating with the patient, understanding the patient's complaints and research. Need for critical thinking in medical education, intellectual standards, critical thinking applied to clinical reasoning, fallacies in reasoning and steps to foster critical thinking skills in medical students are discussed in this article for educational forum.