Assessing a patient is like driving a car
Clinical assessment is a tricky area for students and for experts. Students struggle with the content and its application. They struggle with the constituent parts and often get stuck focusing on very specific parts of the assessment process. They struggle with linking the elements of the process together and can frequent fall into cognitive overload situations (although we do try to scaffold as we go). There is also the anxiety of not wanting to look wrong or ill prepared in front of peers. In much the same way novice drivers may appear slow and uncertain because they are working of a mental checklist of things that have to happen when they drive.
Experts struggle because they do not follow the assessment process as a checklist. They will often skip parts of formal assessment or move on to other areas of assessment in ways that look foreign to the novice. They may struggle in explaining their reasoning because so much of it happens rapidly and in the background when the patient presentation is fairly common. Experts see patterns based on their clinical experience and struggle with how best to explain their thinking. This may partly be because their thinking is based on their clinical experiences which can be highly personal. The other thing about experts is, like experienced drivers, they may develop bad habits and as such a little bit of reflective practice goes a long way.
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