Professional and Ethical Decision-Making among Health Science Students: A Call to Action about Critical Thinking

Abstract

A common approach to enhance professionalism among health science students calls for faculty and senior clinicians to role-model professional and ethical behavior. Role-modeling, however, overlooks the critical thinking skills that professional and ethical decisions require, a significant limitation because health science students frequently retreat to solely personal values to manage professional and ethical dilemmas without contemplating more thoughtful alternatives rooted in professional and ethical principles. In this commentary, we argue that faculty and senior clinicians must define and plainly demonstrate for health science students in the clinical phase of training the critical thinking process required for professional and ethical decision-making in clinical situations. To accomplish this task, we suggest that faculty and senior clinicians teach an application of the familiar SOAP method utilized to critically analyze clinical problems.