The Power of Skepticism and Critical Thinking is a 3-hour online continuing education (CE) course that examines why positive skepticism and critical thinking skills are necessary in clinical practice.

Human beings are endowed with the ability to reason and the need to find connections between things and events. Unfortunately, the need to find connections can be so strong, practitioners and patients can sometimes convince themselves that there are links between treatment plans and patient outcomes, even if there is a lack of evidence to support them. In health care, arriving at the wrong conclusion can be an error of life and death proportions.

These “deductive malfunctions” and other fallacies, heuristics, and biases, are described, discussed, and illustrated in this course. The author begins by defining the concept of ‘critical thinking,’ and follows with a discussion on why practitioners must take an objective approach when evaluating patients, analyzing treatment plans, assessing the effectiveness of interventions, and challenging their own beliefs.

The factors (such as cognitive error, fallacies, assumptions, blind sports, pseudoscience, and quackery) that challenge one’s ability to think critically are highlighted. The author examines strategies for developing critical thinking skills across all ages and provides a review of assessment tools that can be used to gauge the quality of critical thinking before teaching begins and as a measure of progress throughout the training.

The final section of the course provides methods and techniques for cultivating and applying a critical thinking mindset. ‘How-To’ lists for evaluating new treatments, the scientific quality of conference speakers, published studies, and internet content are included.

Outline

Introduction
Section 1: What Is Critical Thinking?
Section 2: Why Do We Need Critical Thinking?
Section 3: Challenges to Critical Thinking
Section 4: Can Critical Thinking Be Learned?
Section 5: Measuring Critical Thinking
Section 6: Cultivating a Critical Thinking Mindset
Summary and Conclusions
Further Information

Course #31-52 | 2024 | 57 pages | 20 posttest questions