critical thinking...

In my opinion, critical thinking is a term that describes something that a person should already know how to do. Basically instead of regurgitating vague facts that you've memorized, you must be able to think through the question apply all the knowledge you have thus far and apply it in order to pick the correct answer. Keep in mind, there will be more than 1 right answer. The key is to analyze the question and be able to pick out the best right answer. Now that is the tricky part. Good Luck! :)

Critical thinking is nothing more than applying thoughts and knowledge to scenarios at hand.

For example: If you can figure out why you wouldn't give the ordered Atenolol to a patient who has a BP of 95/49, you have just critically thought! They get more complicated but that's the general idea.

Critical thinking is used by nurses to solve patient problems and make better decisions along with creativity. If your program is anything like mine, the answers to taking care of a patient is not listed in a textbook, you need to use critical thinking to apply your knowledge and creativity towards a situation in which there are many possible solutions to a problem but you need to pick the best one for your patient. I'm sure you'll find out soon enough when you take your first test. You need to apply what you've learned onto a scenario and you need to pick the best answer (there may be more than one right but you need to pick the most right).

Its thinking about thinking.

Thanks everyone! I was pretty sure that is what it was but just wanted to make sure.

IMO Critical thinking in Nursing means, Common sense with the medical knowledge base behind it. Critical thinking alone, IMO, is the ability to use common sense. But in the medical field you need that knowledge to be able to use common sense in some medical situations. IE: Holding that BP med when their BP is already low.

This is one of my rants.

Critical thinking is a token phrase nursing has adopted to professionalize itself. It really bothers me because it's made out to be something new and unique and something a person wouldn't do unless being instructed to.

How you can not think critically about something is beyond me. I'm not really aware of passive thinking.

What they're talking about is using prior education and experience to draw a conclusion about some problem you don't have the answer to. Gasp!

Google Bloom's taxonomy. You'll see Bloom beat them to describing thinking years ago. He merely labeled different forms of learning. Higher order thinking is a fad in education right now. The thing is some people are just idiots and can't do a lot of productive thinking. The rest of us don't need a label to know we're doing it.