There is an array of ideas and sometimes bewildering lists of terms used to describe the ways people think. But what does critical thinking mean? Can you expect USMLE review sessions to induce critical thinking skills from medical students; or better yet, help them develop these skills?

Critical thinking is a process involving mental operation as induction, deduction, classification, and reasoning. It is a process of dealing with abstractions and discovering the essential principles of things, as contrasted to remaining on the concrete level of facts and specific cases. This skill promotes the ability to analyze and criticize, and to reach conclusions based on sound inference and judgment.

In order for critical thinking skills to develop, USMLE review aims to help the medical students develop their intellectual skills of asking important questions and seeking answers first. Review sessions help the students acquire the inquiry process skills associated with various domains of human learning. Towards the end of the USMLE review months, review programs hope to have helped the medical students become independent, autonomous learners, confident, and capable of learning on their own. As such, the review sessions incorporate various methods of instruction and review, but will always follow the following phases of mentoring using inquiry method to promote critical thinking skills of medical students:

• Phase 1: Provision of objectives, and setting and explaining of inquiry procedures. Mentor goes over the objectives of the review session and gets the review participants ready to inquire. He also explains the ground rules.

• Phase 2: Presentation of the clinical problem. Mentor describes the clinical problem to the medical students using the most appropriate medium.

• Phase 3: Gathering of information and research. Review mentor encourages medical students to ask questions about the clinical problem given with the aim of helping them gather information to assist inquiry.

• Phase 4: Anticipation and Reasoning. Assumptions of foreseeable situations are encouraged to be created. Students must also provide reasons for them in relation to the clinical problem set.

Phase 5: Analysis of the inquiry process. The mentor gets the medical students to think about their own intellectual process and the inquiry process associated with the specific review topic.

Towards the end of the phase, the medical students have accomplished varied sets of critical thinking skills namely: evaluation which is done through assessment, comparison, and inference; analysis which is achieved through exchange of ideas through discussion, comparison of assessment results from a standard from previous medical school learning and experiences, and comprehension by connection which will be attained through careful analysis and evaluation. Comprehension through connection is indicated by how well the medical students relate the clinical problem set with their own assumptions.

Through this, the medical students (without being aware and probably without so much effort) were stimulated to use their critical thinking skills. Through the USMLE review session discussions, new learning are achieved; as well as development and enhancement of critical thinking skills.