Critical thinking encompasses clear thinking and rationality in dealing with various circumstances in life.
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Critical thinking encompasses clear thinking and rationality in dealing with various circumstances in life. Critical thinking fosters quality decision making, subjective thinking, and reflection. This form of thinking relies on logic and helps individuals understand the interplay between or amongst various ideas; formulate and indulge in arguments; point out flaws in reasoning; solve pickles; and justify one’s worldview, perceptions, and opinions (Moore & Parker, 2020). In the absence of critical thinking, individuals can end up indulging in wrong decisions, acts, and behaviors. This paper will discuss an observation of flawed critical thinking that I observed as I was volunteering at a primary healthcare facility.
As I offered voluntary services at a primary healthcare facility a few years ago, I observed a scenario in which an African-American patient received poor healthcare services. The patient needed orthopedic surgery but got a late intervention after he developed pulmonary embolism. As I reflect on this scenario, I realize that stereotypical thinking clouded the healthcare providers’ reasoning. A stereotype is a belief that relates to the culture that society assigns to a particular group of people (Moore & Parker, 2020). The community believes that African-Americans are lower in the pyramid of beings and do not deserve equal treatment as other races. The healthcare providers might have also had stereotypical thinking that the patient was not financially stable.
Stereotypes mitigate critical thinking. Stereotypes fostered unrealistic assignment of characteristics and traits to the African-American patients by the healthcare providers. The healthcare providers did not confirm whether the patient had a stable source of income. Due to stereotypical thinking, the healthcare providers did not book the patient soon enough for surgery out of fear of financial constraints in the patient. The unnecessary and foreseeable harm in this situation was the health complication of pulmonary embolism. This complication nearly led to mortality.
The healthcare providers could have prevented the adverse event if they had avoided stereotypical thinking and thought critically. Critical thinking would have helped the healthcare providers treat the patient as an individual and not a race. The nurse would have conducted a comprehensive health history to ascertain the patient’s economic status and mode of payment for the looming orthopedic surgery. Critical thinking would have also helped the healthcare providers to evaluate their perceptions and attitudes towards the patient. This form of thinking would have helped the healthcare givers to evade discrimination and bias and embraced equality. To avoid stereotypical thinking, prejudice, and discrimination, healthcare providers should be conscious of their attitudes, cultures, opinions, and perceptions (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). This awareness helps and individual to identify their weaknesses in treating other people from different cultures. The primary intervention for mitigating stereotypical bias is learning the cultures of other people to understand their way of life and avoid discrimination.
In conclusion, critical thinking promotes sound decision-making and mitigates unnecessary and foreseeable harms. Stereotypes are barriers to critical thinking. The mitigation of stereotypical thinking involves learning other people’s cultures and being conscious of the subjective attitudes, opinions, and perceptions.
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