Critical thinking and the nurse-midwifery management process

Within recent years, the general educational arena has placed a greater emphasis on the incorporation of critical thinking within student curricula. Critical thinking as a learning tool teaches students the art of reason and logic, and encourages the preparation for dynamic situations that occur outside the classroom. The authors believe that critical thinking and nurse-midwifery are inherently intertwined. To utilize the nurse-midwifery management process in the provision of sound and safe practice, the nurse-midwife must also be a critical thinker. The management process of data gathering, assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation parallels the domains of the critical thinker's process: intellectual standards, modes of reasoning, traits of mind, reasoning abilities, and elements of thought. This article presents similarities between the two models.