The "What Can Go Wrong?" pediatric clinical evaluation tool was adapted from a tool developed by the third author (Dr Caputi), whose work was influenced by the concepts delineated in Tanner's writing on clinical judgment. We use the tool to assess and promote critical thinking for students in a child nursing course. The tool directs the student to consider what could go wrong for an individual patient and the family. It addresses 2 problems frequently encountered in students' thinking. First is the student's tendency to simply consider existing problems when there is a need to anticipate problems that have a high probability of occurring. Second is the frequent inability of students to tailor nursing care to each individual and family. The 1-page tool is used as a quick clinical assessment to provide information about a student's clinical judgment. Figure 1 shows the tool's questions.
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