Reflective Journaling for Clinical Judgment Development and Evaluation

Reflective journaling is a strategy used often in clinical education to gain insight into students' clinical thinking; however, studies indicate that students may benefit from guided reflections. Numerous tools have been used to structure student reflection with varying results. This article describes the outcomes from using the Guide for Reflection based on Tanner's Clinical Judgment Model. The Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric, created from the Model, is used to evaluate development of clinical judgment and provides language to communicate about clinical thinking with students. Senior immersion course competencies, also developed with language from Tanner's Clinical Judgment Model,offer a comprehensive package that fosters students' clinical judgment development, faculty-student communication about clinical judgment, and evaluation of students' clinical thinking.