Clinical Relations: How Relational Reasoning Supports Medical Education and Practice

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Using, Integrating, and Evaluating Information

Abstract

Relational reasoning, or the ability to discern patterns within unconnected information, is a foundational cognitive ability associated with learning. This study uses a naturalistic observation methodology, in which an attending clinical neurologist and his team of residents make diagnostic decisions about actual patients in a hospital setting, to examine the role of relational reasoning and its four forms (i.e., analogy, anomaly, antinomy, and antithesis) in medical education and practice. Results suggest that the level of expertise of a medical team member affects the degree to which they verbalize each of the four forms of relational reasoning. Specifically, the residents were more likely to verbalize anomalies, while the attending physician was more likely to verbalize analogies, antinomies, and antitheses.

Authors

• Denis Dumas, University of Maryland - College Park

• Lisa Baker

• Patricia A. Alexander, University of Maryland - College Park

• Sophie Jablansky, University of Maryland - College Park

• Kevin Niall Dunbar, University of Toronto