Teaching Clinical Reasoning to Medical Students: A Case-Based Illness Script Worksheet Approach

Introduction Clinical reasoning is a fundamental part of a physician's daily workflow. Yet it remains a challenging skill to develop formally, especially in preclerkship-level early learners. Traditionally, medical students learn clinical reasoning informally through experiential opportunities during their clerkship years. This occurs in contrast to the more structured, explicit learning of the basic sciences and physical diagnosis during the preclerkship years. To address this need, we present a flipped classroom case-based approach for developing clinical reasoning skills based on problem representation and the use of a structured illness script worksheet as a model.