How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine: Giving the Identification

Critical skills are the ability of an author to perceive the given or found figure to analyze it for further reflections. Along with the critical thoughts, authors should possess skills for generating logic ones. Both variants are a must for a successful critical thinking essay in medicine or any other area.

A quite common mistake is to draft a critical thinking piece by breaking down the arguments of other authors, demonstrating the weakest points of their works, and showing off own superiority. This is not what this kind of academic assignment about. Critical thinking work deals with the objective and reflections of the issue of the selected topic. The reflections may lead to debates and further analysis, but they never disguise previous works.

Exercise to Know How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine

Before drafting a critical thinking assignment in medicine, you are expected to exercise to establish the necessary skills. By practicing the following exercises, you will develop the required characteristics.

Develop a habit of writing down important thoughts (yours and those belonging to others) to a definite issue. Modify the topic once a week. While specifying your thoughts, pursue this pattern: outline the issue from an emotional, logical and scientific standpoint. Tell the reader about your reaction to the issue. Analyze what has happened. Define the reasons why. Come to the ground of it.

Practice mind mapping. It is said to raise the power of the brain and the ability to perceive information. Mind maps are said to stockpile the capacities of both parts of one’s brain. The more you practice, the more successful you are in summarizing the data, increasing comprehension, and coming up with the top questions.

How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine? — Ask Questions!

These questions will be helpful when it is required to think broadly about the sense of the critical thinking piece. Moreover, they can promote your drafting skills in his area.

• What is the base point?
• What has changed in the course?
• What drivers led to taking this decision?
• How others criticize this idea?
• Does this idea have supporters?
• Is there a possibility to apply this order in other contexts?
• What are the implications?
• What are the unusual consequences?
• Can you give examples?
• Are examples suitable?
• Why do you believe in the credibility of your standpoint?
• What is the relevance of the issue?
• What is the worth of the topic?
• Is there a recommendation that you can provide?

By asking these questions and providing trustworthy answers in your critical thinking essay in medicine, you fly in the face of traditional points of view and assist in finding new solutions. Maybe some of the questions can’t be properly answered due to the specifics of your work. Still, you need to cover as much as possible.

How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine: Choose the Topic

In most guides, they suggest choosing something challenging, provocative and exceptional. We suggest the same only if you find the topic interesting. Otherwise, no matter how challenging or provocative the topic is, you won’t write in properly: authors never succeed in what they find boring.

Your supervisor must have already provided you with the topic. If he/she hasn’t, below, you will find top topics for critical thinking essay in medicine. Believe it or not, each of the topics is thought-provoking.

• Paramedics in General HealthCare Industry;
• How Well Are Rare Genetic Diseases Studied?
• Third-world Countries Medicine and the Role of Humanitarian Missions in Changing the Situation;
• The Place of Opt-in and Opt-out Donor Systems in Present Medicine;
• The Influence of the Modern Lifestyle on People’s Health;
• The History and Evolution of Medical Instruments;
• Treating Autism as a Variant of Norm;
• Why Do Doctors Link Poor Health to Poverty?
• Unconventional Forms of Medicine as a Part of National Healthcare;
• Humans vs Animals: The Ethical Aspects of Medical Research;
• Placebo Effects and How Real Are Their Results?
• Responsibility for Medical Errors;
• The Consequences of Brain Injuries;
• The Place of Genetic Engineering and Cloning in the 21st Century;
• How to Battle Alzheimer Disease: Real-life Cases;
• Effective Approaches to the Issues of Obesity;
• Who Is to Decide Whether or Not to Place an Elderly in a Special Elderly Center?
• Potential Threats of Medical Research;
• How Do Doctors Promote Particular Types of Medications?
• Anorexia and Bulimia: Mental or Physical Diseases?
• Legalization of Euthanasia: Pros and Cons;
• Should the Vaccination of Children Be Mandatory?
• How TV Shows Affect the Popularity of Diets Among Girls Under 18;
• Limits to Medical Tests on Animals: Should There Be Any?
• How High Are the Chances for the Genetic Engineering Allowance?

The above-presented topics are intensely discussed by practitioners, theoretics, and ordinary patients. Each one has own point of view and is ready to defend it by all means. What we suggest is to pick the topic and, instead of stating that your idea is the only right one, try to do what others refuse to: analyze it and apply all the critical thinking skills you possess.

How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine: The Format

So, you’ve already developed your critical thinking skills, decided on the topic, and researched it back and forth.

Now it is high time to get to the main work — write a critical thinking essay in medicine. Get started as early as you can to have enough time for multiple checkings. Usually, last-minute papers have a poor grammar, bad lexical ground, and shallow research. And these are not the friends of high grades of critical thinking essays in medicine.

The format of this academic paper type matters a lot. Actually, with some professors, it is as important as the ideas put in the paper. For you to make things clearer and omit the process of rewriting the essay over and over again, we presented the format below.

Thesis statement
No need to hide the truth: for most newbies, writing a thesis statement is as complicated as climbing the mountain. The thesis is the primary argument and the basis of the entire work. This is why you need to take your time to write it properly.

To make this part really effective, express the core focus of the assignment and present an arguable claim. The thesis should also contain a few details (not all of the ones you are going to add to your critical thinking essay). Instead of saying that the idea or approach is good or bad, you need to add that it’s good/bad because…

Professors always highlight that their students should avoid including really obvious things into their critical thinking essays in medicine: ‘Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming’. Plus, it is better to avoid providing your subjective opinion like ‘The discovery of penicillin is the greatest discovery of the 20th century’. They suggest presenting an argument that can be supported by evidence.

Outline
Every essay needs an outline, and a critical thinking essay is no exception. It must be created before you proceed to the introduction part of your work. This is perhaps the only part of the essay that you are allowed to present as detailed as you want it to be. However, by including a great portion of materials into the outline, you are to be sure you’ll be able to put everything into your essay too.

Outline formats are various. A formal way goes with the Roman numerals (the main chapter), the Arabic ones (a sub-chapter), and letters of course (specifications of the sub-chapter). There is also an informal approach that is often referred to as a mind map.

Introduction
You have probably come across one of its alternative names — an engaging sentence. It is really so: your introduction should be engaging to encourage readers to follow your ideas to the final page.

The introduction is, roughly speaking, the presentations of the main ideas of your critical thinking essay in medicine. It grabs/hooks attention with the first word. How to achieve grabbing success? Look for an intriguing fact or interesting statistics, ask a rhetorical question and refuse from any cliches like: Nowadays… In today’s world… As the dictionary says…

Body
It is typically comprised of 3-5 paragraphs, 4-5 sentences each. The task of the body of your critical thinking essay in medicine is to support the main arguments you have shared in the parts above. Each paragraph is the part of the whole work BUT it is anew piece of evidence to support the point of view that is under critical analysis. Each paragraph is proof of the thesis statement — the part that we have discussed above.

If recommendations from your curator permit, between the lines, you can also complement the body with the background data and extra detail. They always allow readers to understand the work better.

In the body, do not impose new ideas that weren’t reflected in the introduction part or thesis statement. They will overload the essay, make it less clear and the one that raises more questions than provides answers.

Conclusion
The final part of your critical thinking essay in medicine should not give in in complexity to any other part of the academic assignment. The concluding paragraph should strongly summarize all the given arguments. Also, it stresses on what you on what you’ve tried to prove your readers with this written task.

Prior to getting closer to this assignment, reread everything you have already completed: the outline, thesis statement, intro, and the body. Analyze all the four parts and write two sentences using the following techniques:

• CTA or Call to Action making a reader give an answer, research the topic, share an opinion, give your essay to others to read.
• Review the main ideas giving a reader a chance to get back to it and quickly reflect on whether the ideas were well-researched and supported by evidence.
• Explain how the topic affects the medical field in general and your reader personally.

Apply all efforts to refer back to the earliest points of your work and unite them in a single concluding paragraph.

How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay in Medicine: After Finishing

Upon completing a draft of your critical thinking essay in medicine, you need to do four more tiny steps to bring the academic assignment to perfection:

1. Take time before revising the piece. Experienced writers agree to the idea that you may need around 2-3 days after complicated research and writing process before getting back to the written lines. The break is pretty short, isn’t it? However, it allows you to have rest. Afterward, carefully proofread the piece for errors like grammar mistakes or typos that may have a negative effect on your final grade.
2. Find someone to read your essay before you hand it in. It may be either a family member or a friend, a groupmate or a graduate with experience in writing such complicated tasks. Ask him/her to make really constructive comments that will allow you to see mistakes and important nuances being lost.
3. Always cite resources that have been used in the essay. Theoretical information along with statistics, and quotes should be in the list of references.
4. Check your work for plagiarism. The check is mainly done via free online plagiarism checking software. The software also allows downloading the PDF versions of the online check for you to present it to your professor.

Here you are: all of the stages are successfully completed and the essay is handed in. Now it is time to wait till it is checked. Having followed all of our tips and recommendations, you can expect only the highest grade.

References:

• Coles Editorial Board (2006). How to write good essays and critical reviews. Toronto: Coles.
• Cottrell, S. (2005). Critical Thinking Skills : Developing Effective Analysis And Argument. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Newkirk, T. (1989). Critical thinking and writing: reclaiming the essay. Bloomington, Ind.: Eric Clearinghouse On Reading And Communication Skills ; Urbana, Ill.