Reflection or critical thinking? : a pedagogical revolution in North American health care education

George Bernard Shaw's observation that the United States of America and Great Britain are "two nations divided by a common language" is as pertinent today as when it was made in1887. This juxtaposition has many other manifestations one of which is the delivery of health care education. It has been established in the United States of America that the preferred pedagogy is critical thinking, exponents of this educational module include Dr. Martin Luther King who suggested that, the function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically . . . The complete education gives one not only power of concentration but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate (King,1948). This is further supported by the Yale professor, William Sumner, who enthuses that education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens (Sumner, 1943).