Usmle Review Facts: Knowledge

Disciplines are characterized by a perspective, a domain, sources for the development of knowledge and ways by which knowledge is characterized and developed, like the discipline of Medicine.

Knowing includes knowledge based on observations, research findings, clinical manifestations and scientific approaches. Knowing is more dependent on sense data, but it also includes other types of data. Such process of knowing is what you need to learn when you are in the USMLE review.

For instance, you know that women who work outside the household tend to work a double shift, one shift outside their home and the other to take care of their home. You also know that women who work outside the home tend to have better mental health than women who work only inside the home. Inferences could be made about what types of support and health care services these women need based on this knowledge.

Knowing is different from understanding. Understanding includes putting the experience and situation of women within historical, gender and social context. It includes a consideration of the norms, values and the meanings of housework and the barriers that societies impose on women and their work.

Knowing results from careful systematic research or from repeated experiences in clinical practice, as what you are expecting to happen after achieving success with USMLE Steps. Reflecting on that knowledge and interpreting the meanings of relationships as seen and experienced by all parties concerned and putting that which is known within a context of feelings, values and different perspectives is what brings you closer to an understanding of that which is known. One pattern of knowing by itself will not uncover all the knowledge needed for a human and practice-oriented science, as is the nature of medical practice.

In order for you to get the best education from medical school and additional knowledge from a USMLE review, you have to subscribe to the patterns of knowing, which includes both theoretical and practical knowledge.

Theoretical knowledge includes and reflects the basic values, guiding principles and elements in the practice of medicine. Practical knowledge, however does not have to be organized in the same way because many parts of this knowledge are not yet articulated and because the artistic side of practice may not be amenable to total articulation. For instance, you may already know everything about how Tetralogy of Fallot develops as what you have read from textbooks and discussed inside the classroom. In order for you to acquire practical knowledge regarding this disease, you need to actually see a patient with such a condition. Practical knowledge can be achieved through personal, collective means and reflections.

The allied health professions which is headed by the medical profession is a discipline that requires expertise both in theoretical and practical knowledge. Though many educators and educational psychologists say that you can also simulate practical knowledge inside the classroom or any USMLE review, the actual experience on which to apply your practical and theoretical knowledge is still the best teacher there is.

By: Gerald Faye Johnson

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Gerald Faye Johnson is an Educational Content Consultant for various Step One USMLE Reviews produced by Apollo Audiobooks, LLC and Premedical Solutions, LLC. You can find the source interview podcast for this USMLE 1 resource at our website.