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March 25, 2026Postgraduate Medical Journal3 citations

Clinical judgment: an essential method in medicine

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GFG FAVANSNicoletta SoninoJGJenny Guidi

Key Points

  • This review aims to redefine the importance of clinical judgment in medical practice and its interaction with technology.
  • Conducted a literature review on clinical judgment and psychosomatic medicine
  • Identified three phases of clinical judgment: information collection, reasoning, and decision making
  • Examined interviewing as the primary method for data gathering
  • Highlighted the role of clinimetrics in enhancing clinical reasoning
  • Emphasized the value of clinical judgment in patient care and the potential of precision medicine
  • Demonstrated that structured clinical reasoning can improve decision making
  • Proposed that better understanding and training in clinical judgment can enhance the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions

Abstract

Abstract Physicians rely on clinical judgment and patients look for it. However, clinical judgment is infrequently discussed in the literature, and is often perceived as an intuitive art, that is likely to be replaced by technology and artificial intelligence. This review offers a reconceptualization of the role of clinical judgment in current medical practice and research, informed by the extensive knowledge that has accumulated in psychosomatic medicine. Clinical judgment consists of three phases: collecting clinical information; interpretation and clinical reasoning; decision making. Interviewing is the primary method for gathering data. Clinical reasoning involves bringing together relevant information and formulating hypotheses, which result in decisions and therapeutic acts. Clinimetrics, the science of clinical measurements, facilitates physician’s reasoning and organization of data. Improving the features of clinical judgment is likely to yield a highly effective precision medicine.

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Cite This Study

FAVA et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69c37b62b34aaaeb1a67dc21https://doi.org/10.1093/postmj/qgag030
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