Clinical Judgment

The mastery of clinical judgment is what separates the expert clinician from the novice. Yet clinical judgment remains somewhat obscure. Is it a tacit knowledge? Or one that can be formulated according to explicit rules? Is it a science? Or a virtue? Has it been replaced or its importance reduced by evidence-based medicine? Or will it soon be taken over from clinicians by intelligent machines? And what is clinical judgment, anyway?  

In today’s consultation, I sit down with four guests ahead of a clinical judgment symposium to see how they use philosophy to understand clinical judgment: Ross Upshur (University of Toronto), Luis Flores (King’s College London), Kathryn Montgomery (Northwestern University) and Benjamin Djulbegovic (University of South Florida).