Facilitating the clinical reasoning process: the Wanda Holmes case

'Medicine is inherently a problem solving activity, in which efficiency and effectiveness are strongly dependent on one's ability to access and manipulate a vast knowledge base. Students should be given fewer "answers" and more "tools"-tools for self-teaching and for synthesising, framing, and revising knowledge.' This paper presents a prototype case which addresses these issues by providing tools that support the access, integration and application of knowledge in a medical context. The tools provide: learner and faculty feedback; economies of scale in the development of case series; and economies of effort for case designers and students.