The Numerous Cognitive Processes of Clinical Intuition

To gain a better understanding of "clinical intuition" as experienced by physicians, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 18 family physicians, analyzing 24 different patient cases in which the physicians believed they had experienced an intuition.

While the medical literature discusses clinical intuition as "first impressions" or the first thing that comes to a physician's mind, researchers found this is only a part of what most family physicians understand by the term intuition.

Specifically, they identified three types of decision processes: gut feelings, recognitions and insights. In all cases examined, participants experienced conflict between their intuition and a decision they perceived to be more rational, or between their intuition and their expectations about what other physicians would do.

The authors conclude the outcomes of clinical intuition can be negative or positive, and until research further specifies the circumstances under which intuitive process produce accurate judgments, clinicians should not be admonished not to trust their intuition.

JCI: Clinical Intuition in Family Medicine: More Than First Impressions, By Amanda Woolley, BA, and Olga Kostopoulou, MSc, PhD, King's College London, United Kingdom