A student’s perspective on the effectiveness of strategies to overcome barriers of critical thinking in medical students’ curriculum

We appreciate the research by Kasalaei et al. (1) in analysing the barriers to critical thinking in medical school curriculums. As current medical students at King’s College in London, we would like to discuss how our medical school has addressed some of the barriers mentioned and has consequently enhanced our critical thinking skills. Ineffective evaluation within the learning environment is suggested by the authors as one such barrier. Without receiving appropriate feedback and discussing potential improvements in academic work, students cannot enhance their learning experience or engage in higher level analytical reflection (1). In particular, one form of evaluation, peer feedback, has been widely adopted by our medical school. As current students, we believe that this has been very beneficial in allowing us to gain an insight into the different ways our peers have approached the same task, and literature has also shown it has positive effects on performance (2). Furthermore, from personal experience, the active process of engaging in peer feedback is highly useful in familiarizing the students with the marking criteria and steps involved in high achievements in the set task. This idea has been supported by the literature (3).