Syncing Our Global Thinking: A Framework for Contextualized Clinical Reasoning

Abstract

Purpose Globally, health care practitioners (HCPs) practice in a variety of settings. To account for the diversity of these contexts, HCPs should utilize dynamic clinical reasoning skills to provide contextually responsive services that account for the complexities of patients, clinicians, and their surroundings. However, traditional models of clinical reasoning approach this skill in a reductionistic and segmented manner that ignores the impact of these diverse factors in health care provision. This makes it very difficult to reconcile these models with the realities of practice. Method By repositioning clinical reasoning as a unique and dynamic skill and identifying the shortcomings of traditional clinical reasoning models, we suggest a novel theoretical framework: contextualized clinical reasoning , which centralizes factors related to context and individual within its approach. Conclusions In order to practice clinical reasoning in an authentic manner that recognizes the impact of contextual and personal realities, we put forward the contextualized clinical reasoning framework. This framework gives HCPs the tools needed to change the rhetoric on best practice and provide effective health care services that account for complexity and diversity of health care contexts globally.