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Clinical Reasoning in Nursing Practice

Taylor Garner

Nursing 310 Section 01

Sister Hawkins

May 8th, 2017

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Clinical reasoning is confused with decision making or critical thinking. Clinical

reasoning does include these skills, but also so much more. Simmon defines clinical reasoning as

a process that uses different kinds of thinking strategies to analyze patient information and

evaluating the significance of the information, and then to act on that information. (Simmon,

2010, pg. 1155) Sedgwick said clinical reasoning was not just cognitive function, but included

other factors such as psychological, social, and cultural factors (Sedgwick, 2014). JuHee Lee

thought that a nurses clinical reasoning was related to their individual knowledge and clinical

experience (Lee, 2016). Clinical reasoning involves a process of thinking, prioritizing, logic,

intuition, common sense, and inference. It is a skill that is developed over time and requires a lot

of practice.

It is clear to tell which nurses use practice clinical reasoning from those who dont.

Nurses who are proficient at clinical reasoning can offer their patients the best care and attention.

There are many ways to show and practice clinical reasoning. According to Simmon, clinical

reasoning can be used to recognize consequences from past mistakes and may be used in the next

process (Simmon, 2010). This turns clinical reasoning from a onetime decision into a cyclical

process. JuHee Lee said the most used clinical skill was checking accuracy and reliability (Lee,

2016). This is important to clinical reasoning because it shows the nurse taking patient

information into account and doing things the correct way. A nurses accuracy and reliability

could be the difference between saving or killing a patient. Sedgwick said that nurses who

showed metacognitive self-awareness were better at clinical reasoning than other nurses

(Sedgwick, 2014). Together these practices of clinical reasoning show the nurses ability to

continually adjust the care plan to the patient.

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Clinical reasoning is not a skill that we are born with; it takes practice to develop.

Learning clinical reasoning now will help me to develop my skills, learn how to care for patients,

and how to work with other care providers. Clinical reasoning impacts my current practice

because it is critical to learn early on. If I do not develop clinical reasoning, then I will not be a

competent or adequate nurse. Clinical reasoning has a huge impact on my future practice because

it will define what kind of nurse I am. This one skill will set apart adequate nurses from

exceptional nurses. Exceptional nurses can critically think and reason when it comes to caring

for their patients. I am going to start to increase my clinical reasoning now so that I can set

myself apart as an exceptional nurse.

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References

Simmons, B. (2010). Clinical reasoning: concept analysis. Journal Of Advanced Nursing, 66(5),

1151-1158. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05262.x

Sedgwick, M. G., Grigg, L., & Dersch, S. (2014). ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Deepening the

quality of clinical reasoning and decision-making in rural hospital nursing practice. Rural

& Remote Health, 14(3), 1-12.

Lee, J., Lee, Y. J., Bae, J., & Seo, M. (2016). Registered nurses' clinical reasoning skills and

reasoning process: A think-aloud study. Nurse Education Today, 4675-80.

doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2016.08.017