About Us
Reflective Practice helps healthcare professionals examine how they think, feel, and respond — building the habit of self-reflection that deepens learning and strengthens patient care.
Reflective Practice helps healthcare professionals appreciate the ways that their personal context—the interwoven fabric of one’s lived experiences—shape the lens through which they see the world. With this understanding, individuals become able to identify the uniquely personal sources of their reactions, assumptions, and biases and develop habits of thought that allow them to stay centered—the foundation of more self-aware, compassionate care. Explore how we teach these habits of thought and habits of being across every stage of training below.
Reflective Practice is a learned skill that allows us to explore our personal context in order to identify our assumptions and biases, and affords us a greater understanding about the way we think. Personal context is described as “the interwoven fabric of one’s unique and diverse life experiences” and shapes the lens through which we see the world around us.
Understanding how we think and the sources of our individual way of thinking allows us to be more mindful of the way we interact with others. Having this self-awareness improves patient care, regardless of our profession, specialty, or environment. Developing the “habit of thought” that is Reflective Practice is a lifelong endeavor and can have dramatic positive impacts on both our professional and personal lives.
The goal in creating this website is to provide a forum in which a diverse community of educators and learners are able to share high-quality reflective practice stimuli and build reflective practice curricula. In addition, the site offers faculty development tips for those teaching reflective practice. Health care educators may apply for a free faculty account from the homepage. Once approved, faculty account holders can contribute resources, create original curricula, and create curricula that is built upon others’ previous work, with automated attribution for the original author. The site is built to allow educators to collate lessons into a unique link for their learners on the site, facilitating teaching and learning.
Goal of the Curriculum
To help students develop the skill of self-reflection in order to improve the care they deliver to patients.
Objectives of the Curriculum
Reflective Practice 101 (RP 101) – “Contextual Thinking”
By the end of RP 101, through written expression and small group discussion, learners will demonstrate the ability to:
(1) identify their reactions to common and challenging situations in healthcare
(2) recognize that one’s reactions are neither right nor wrong; they simply are.
(3) recognize that one’s reactions (and perspective) stem from one’s personal context- the interwoven fabric of one’s unique and diverse life experiences
(4) critically examine their personal context in order to identify the sources of their reactions, assumptions, and biases
(5) consider how these assumptions and biases may both positively and negatively impact their clinical reasoning, decision-making, and communication with patients.
(6) develop realistic plans in order to mitigate the negative and enhance the positive implications of their reactions.
Reflective Practice 201 (RP 201) – “Thinking on Action”
By the end of RP 201, learners will demonstrate (through creative expression and small group discussion) the ability to:
(1) reflect on experiences they have had in the provider role that were particularly challenging and/or from which they gained important insight
(2) consider the impact their personal context had on their communication with patients and colleagues, clinical reasoning, and decision-making
(3) develop plans to enhance the positive and mitigate the negative impact of their contextual reactions and actions.
Reflective Practice 301 (RP 301) – Metacognition – “Thinking in Action”
By the end of the elective entitled “Metacognition”, learners (through assigned reading, self-study, written reflections, creative works, and near-peer small group facilitation) will learn and practice the principles of self-reflection and mindfulness and take steps toward implementing them in their daily practice.
1. The ability to identify their reactions to common and challenging situations in their practice.
2. An understanding for the meaning of personal context and how their own personal context (and by extension, that of others) shapes one’s perspective.
3. The ability to identify their assumptions and biases and the implications of these assumptions and biases for patient care.
4. The ability to reflect on their own patient encounters and to analyze their reactions and actions in these situations in order to improve the care they deliver in the future.
5. The ability to read and analyze written, audio, and video material as a stimulus for reflection.