ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING IN PH.D. CANDIDATES OF PERSIAN MEDICINE

Thinking and decision making abilities are one of the most important skills for clinicians in general or special practice; but many studies result showed a gap between the ideal and the real, which lead to medical errors or inappropriate judgment in complex situations. Since traditional, alternative or complementary medical schools are still in the beginning road with various deficiencies in scientific structure or evidence-based instructions for clinicians, critical thinking is central proficiency for practitioners in this field. The purpose of this study is measure the critical thinking in Ph.D. candidates of Persian medicine. To conduct the research the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (form B) was used and the participation was voluntary, CCTST questionnaire sent online to Ph.D. candidates in Iranian medical universities, 18 persons responded to the test. The results showed that Ph.D. candidates of Persian Medicine are weak in all critical thinking skills include Analysis, Interpretation, Evaluation, Explanation, Deductive reasoning, Inductive reasoning. Also, female’s scored higher than males in all areas of critical thinking, except the deductive reasoning that earned the same score. The findings of this study showed that critical thinking is an important challenge in the Ph.D. of Persian medicine education and it is recommended as one of the most fundamental educational outcomes in the Ph.D. curriculum of Persian Medicine. Keywords: Critical thinking, medical education, thinking Skill, Oriental medicine, Arabic Medicin