Intuition in medical practice: A reflection on Donald Schön’s reflective practitioner

Abstract

In a recent commentary, Dr. Abhishek Biswas asks the question whether physicians should rely on their "gut feeling" when making clinical decisions. Biswas describes a situation where his intuition resulted in an immediate course of action that prompted urgent medical attention for a patient who had "routine" pain. Inspired by the author's account, I would like to further Biswas' discussion and examine its importance using the educational theories of Donald Schön and his concept of the reflective practitioner. Schön argues that technical knowledge alone is not sufficient to solve the complex problems that professionals face on a daily basis and intuition, developed through a reflective practice, is crucial for any professional's practice, especially in a time of greater uncertainty in the workplace.

Intuition in counseling: Implications for humanistic practice

“…Specifically, she indicated "reflective practice is really where it's at … that constant checking in, in the room, in that moment." This idea resonates with Mickleborough (2015), who argued that reflective practice is as important for medical practitioners to develop their intuition as technical knowledge is in the medical field (as we might see in the counseling field in relying on theory or skills alone) is not enough.…”

Blending Gagne’s Instructional Model with Peyton’s Approach to Design an Introductory Bioinformatics Lesson Plan for Medical Students: Proof-of-Concept Study

“…The formal lesson plan evaluation is still pending. However, the course coordinator and instructors followed Schon’s reflective practice model and [ 35 ] “reflected on the session” from which it was discovered that the students had enjoyed the activity and had been engaged in all lesson plan steps ( Figure 2 ). When “reflecting on the session,” the instructors discovered that as some of the work-stations had slowed down during the session, some student groups took longer to complete the activity.…”

Educação permanente visando à integralidade do cuidado na rede de saúde mental

“…Schön (2009) propõe a ideia da reflexão sobre a reflexão-na-ação da prática, que passa pelo viés do ensino prático por meio do estudo da vida organizacional dos profissionais. O autor preconiza que o conhecimento profissional poderia ser melhorado a fim de estar mais próximo de atender aos anseios sociais; para tanto, sugere que os profissionais encontrem um terreno comum onde as diferentes formas de saber possam ser usadas para resolver os problemas indeterminados da prática (Mickleborough, 2015).…”