Preparing medical students for clinical decision making: a pilot study exploring how students make decisions and the perceived impact of a clinical decision making teaching intervention.

Background: Junior doctors are frequently faced with making difficult clinical decisions and previous studies have shown that they are unprepared for some aspects of clinical decision making.

Aim: To explore medical students' feelings and strategies when responsible for making clinical decisions and to obtain students' views of the effectiveness of a clinical decision making teaching intervention.

Methods: A teaching intervention was developed, consisting of a clinical decision making tool, a tutorial and scenarios within a simulated ward environment.