What is critical thinking: Beyond merely retrieving information, critical thinking involves the ability to reason, process and evaluate information, using it to problem solve and reach accurate conclusions.
How to evaluate information: Critically evaluating information is imperative, especially in the health fields, as it could potentially affect the health of the information consumer. Following are a couple of sites that will aid you in critically evaluating health information:
Health Information Literacy
http://www.mdc.edu/medical/library/HealthInformationLiteracy.ppt
What you will find: a powerpoint that will aid you in identifying quality health education materials written at various literacy levels, in various formats and in other languages; help you in limiting your use of medical jargon; assist you in instructing consumers/patients to evaluate health education materials for authority, currency, and bias; and help you improve communication skills with your co-workers.
Medical Library Association (MLA):
Content Evaluation Guidelines
http://www.mlanet.org/resources/userguide.html#3
What you will find: poses four sets of questions on which to evaluate the content of a website.
The Health on the Net (HON) Foundation:
HON Code of Conduct (HONcode) for medical and health web sites
What you will find: defines a set of rules to hold medical and health web site developers to basic ethical standards in the presentation of their information. You may search to determine if particular websites have obtained the HONcode seal.
Using case studies to practice your critical thinking skills: Case studies present fictional medical situations that enable the learner to practice critical problem solving in a controlled environment without the threat of endangering a patient's health. Following are a few sites that offer practice case studies:
Apgar Scoring Challenge, Milwaukee Area Technical College
http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/index.asp?objID=NUR402
Nursing Process: Case Study - Postpartum Nursing, Milwaukee Area Technical College