Clinical Reasoning Workshop: Lumbosacral Spine and Hip Disorders

Helping physicians-in-training develop effective clinical reasoning skills may facilitate progression to expertise, reduce diagnostic errors, and improve patient safety. Using our previous experience, we developed a workshop that reviews musculoskeletal lumbar spine and hip conditions. This workshop also uses deductive and inductive modes of clinical reasoning and provides opportunities for learners to practice toggling from one to another while reviewing.

Using exemplar musculoskeletal vignettes, this workshop allows residents to practice engaging and toggling between both modes of information processing. This workshop also includes pre- and posttests, small-group learning, and a small-group competition.

The workshop was implemented with a group of 26 physical medicine and rehabilitation residents. Although residents did well on the pretest, the workshop improved their test performance. Residents liked the workshop and thought it improved their diagnostic ability.

A workshop that included team- and case-based learning, key features assessment, script theory, and gamification was effective in engaging residents and resulted in high resident satisfaction and the perception of increased ability to tackle clinical problems. Learning from our experience with the previous workshop resulted in significant reduction in faculty time required, and increased the number of residents who were able to complete both pre- and posttests.