Critical thinking: A core skill within education and healthcare

This is a co-publication with the British Medical Journal (BMJ), first published in May 2017 (BMJ 357: J2234) Education and healthcare intersect in important ways, paving the way for exciting cross-sector collaborations. Critical thinking – the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe – is an essential skill that crosses both domains. Few doctors or teachers are likely to argue with this. Yet, until recently, the UK regulator, the General Medical Council, and similar bodies in North America did not mention ‘critical thinking’ anywhere in their standards for licensing and accreditation, and critical thinking is not explicitly taught or assessed in most education programmes for health professionals. In this article, we argue that it is important for teachers, clinicians, patients and students to learn to think critically, and that teaching and learning these skills should be considered explicitly. We examine why and how education and healt