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Table 4 Knowledge, skills and attitudes which support undergraduate health professions’ students to manage uncertain situations

From: “It’s okay to not know …” a qualitative exploration of faculty approaches to working with uncertainty

Knowledge

• Core medical knowledge (e.g., consent topics)

• How to define boundaries

• How and when to escalate care or call for help

• Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do

• The purpose and value of teaching strategies (i.e., “priming” for learning)

• An awareness of others’ issues and roles (e.g., other classmates and patients)

• The centrality of the patient in healthcare

• The nature of uncertainty within healthcare practice (i.e., “health professions’ work has many grey areas as opposed to black/white ones”; “uncertainty is not always bad”)

• Dunning-Kruger effect

Skills

• Recognising uncertainty

• Communication skills

• Managing challenging situations

• Emotion regulation

• Self-assessment

• Self-directed learning

• Working with feedback

• Reflective practice (e.g., journaling)

• Assertiveness

• Taking initiative

• Teamwork skills

• Problem solving

• Research skills

• Information retrieval skills

• Project management skills

• Decision making despite incomplete knowledge

• Ethical decision making

Attitude

• Openness

• Adaptability

• Motivation

• Value learning from others

• Growth mindset

• Positivity

• Self-awareness

• Collaborative attitude

• Tolerance

• Resilience

• Engagement

• Trust

• Confidence/Experience