Have we forgotten to teach how to think?

Emergency medicine is a varied and exciting specialty in which the aim is not always to confirm a diagnosis but to be safe and appropriate in your management of potential diagnoses. Medical and nursing staff are therefore taught risk stratification of the presenting signs and symptoms they see. For example, generally it is far more important that the severity of respiratory distress is recognised, rather than its underlying cause. A correct diagnosis of bronchiolitis is irrelevant if you have missed the fact that the child is peri-arrest due to hypoxia and respiratory fatigue. [Opening paragraph]