Clinical judgment is an essential skill needed by RNs. Employers expect new graduate nurses to enter the work-force with established clinical judgment skills. Therefore, nurse educators must ensure that prelicensure nursing students develop clinical judgment before graduation. This qualitative, interpretive description study reviewed the reflective journals of 30 prelicensure nursing students w...

BACKGROUND The logical nature of clinical judgment has been conceptualized in different ways, but a clear connection between the features of clinical judgment and those of semiology is still lacking. METHODS The characteristics of clinical judgment, medical semiology, and psychiatric semiology are described. Connections between them are drawn. RESULTS Clinical judgment is described as an ab...

Concepts of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment are often used interchangeably. However, they are not one and the same, and understanding subtle difference among them is important. Following a review of the literature for definitions and uses of the terms, the author provides a summary focused on similarities and differences in the processes of critical thinking, clinic...