One of the most important aspects of the role of the GP supervisor is to help develop the learner’s clinical reasoning skills.

Clinical reasoning is the process of making sense of the clinical and contextual information regarding a patient’s presentation in order to determine the best plan of management. It requires the ability to gather and integrate various sources of information, to weigh evidence, manage uncertainty and to reflect upon the process used to reach the diagnosis and make a management plan.

Sound clinical reasoning is fundamental to safe and effective general practice. While development of clinical reasoning skills is partly based on accumulation of experience, it is also a skill that can be taught. GP supervisors therefore play a vital role in teaching their learners to reason effectively.