UNCP 4617 How Healthcare Professionals Think and Decide

Through course content and a practice-based approach, students will gain a deeper understanding of the thinking and deliberating processes that healthcare practitioners employ in the evaluation and care of patients. This self-reflective approach sets conditions for genuinely patient-centered care. The course will proceed on two tracks, one experiential and the other theoretical. On the experiential track, students will reflect on their development from child to young adult, and learn to use a meditative approach to puzzle solving in order to become better acquainted with themselves as thinkers and doers. On the theoretical track, students will read representative accounts of how health practitioners think and decide and explore how these accounts compare to a phenomenological account of the way that health-related thinking and deciding normally happens. Students will then turn their attention to the social, economic, and cultural contexts in which these activities unfold. This is a capstone course for seniors in pre-health or nursing courses of study. The theoretical track exposes students to and promotes reflection on the world that they will be entering after graduating from BC. The experiential track deliberately aims to promote growth in self-knowledge.