Strategies used by nurses for decision-making in the paediatric orthopaedic setting

This paper identifies some of the clinical reasoning skills used by orthopaedic nurses when making diagnoses and formulating a management plan. The process of decision making is explored. Assessment of the patient using a systematic approach is explored prior to making judgements based on intuition and/or information processing. Throughout an example of a child with an external fixator is used to illustrate the concepts discussed.