Should there be more teaching of critical thinking in Australian general practice?

For clinicians such as GPs, critical thinking includes critical appraisal o f scientific evidence and the context of their clinical practice, and criti cal introspection. Largely due to a lack of rigorous research, there is no evidence that teach ing critical thinking or appraisal, at undergraduate or postgraduate levels , improves GPs' clinical performance or their patients' health. Before conducting such research, a systematic review of the available liter ature (largely in education and psychology) is warranted to assess the effi cacy of teaching critical thinking in non-medical environments. Critical thinking is being taught in Australian medical schools and will be introduced in the RACGP Training Program. However, it will be a while befo re this will have an impact in GPs' surgeries. The challenge will be to des ign an attractive CME program relevant to GPs while simultaneously evaluati ng its efficacy.