The pivotal role of clinical tutorial teaching in knowledge construction

Students' new knowledge is gradually built up in the context of the task for which it is required and consolidated by applying it to clinical cases. As students see more and more clinical cases the knowledge emerges from an associative mesh of different levels of understanding. During tutorial clinical teaching, residents should be gradually exposed to an increasing range of real-world learning tasks and increasing levels of complexity. This exposure allows them to gradually develop shortcuts in the retrieval of their knowledge. This commentary provides a rationale for the construction of knowledge and the pivotal role that clinical tutorial teaching plays in this task.