Diagnostic conversations: Clinical Decision Making in surgery – Part 1

Sound and efficient decision making are hallmarks of an expert surgeon. Unfortunately, those experts are often unable to explain their thinking processes, or to teach their trainees and colleagues how they do it. Surgeons and staff of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons worked together to develop a model to explain the processes around clinical decision making and used this understanding and knowledge to devise a Clinical Decision Making (CDM) training course. The surgical faculty ensure the model is applicable to specific surgical cases, as well as presenting a framework of how clinical decisions are made. Wendy targets the specific decision making processes that are occurring with each clinical scenario, and highlights some of the learning opportunities that they provide. The conversation in this paper models the kinds of case-based interactions which occur in the development and teaching of the CDM course.