Part of being a safe healthcare professional is having effective insight into one’s own practice and recognising areas which would benefit from development or improvement. Areas for development may have been highlighted by others giving feedback or by a supervisor as part of discussions on how to improve. It can be hard to pin down what people are referring to when they talk about insight. A common way in which medical professionals may develop and demonstrate insight can be through considering feedback and through self-reflection. To understand insight and how it impacts our learning, we have shared some resources below:

Suggested Resources

Isolation and insight: practical pillars of revalidation? | British Journal of General Practice

Discusses how isolation can limit reflective insight and professional growth.

Avoiding isolation and gaining insight | The BMJ

Highlights the impact of professional isolation on doctors’ wellbeing and learning.

Insight in medical training: what, why and how? Ng et al PMJ 2024

Explores what insight means in medical education and how it can be supported.

Medical trainees and the Dunning Kruger effect: when they don’t know what they don’t know. Rahmani M, J Grad Med Ed 2020

Reflects on how overconfidence can affect trainee insight and supervision.

The cognitive apprenticeship: advanced reasoning education by thinking aloud. Jagannath A et al, De Gruyter 2022

Introduces “intellectual streaking” - openly modelling clinical reasoning to support learner development.

This page was last updated on: 05.11.2025 at 10.53