Objective  To investigate the perspectives and consensus among high-level medical professionals in China regarding critical thinking skills, identify key factors influencing the cultivation of critical thinking skills among medical students, propose optimization strategies, and provide both theoretical and practical guidance for standardizing mechanisms of critical thinking training within the medical education system.

Methods  A mixed-methods approach was employed. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 core personnel involved in critical thinking training from multiple medical universities, hospitals, and clinical research teams across China between March 2023 and June 2023. Grounded theory was applied to explore the influencing factors, and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method was applied to construct a structural model of the influencing factors. Centrality and causality analyses were conducted to examine the interrelationships among factors.

Results  The grounded theory analysis revealed a shared conceptual understanding of critical thinking skills among the participants, who emphasized that the development of critical thinking skills was influenced by multiple factors, including individual traits, teaching methods, and institutional environments. According to the DEMATEL analysis, 13 core factors influencing the development of critical thinking skills in high-level medical professionals were identified. Among these, knowledge foundation was the most important influencing factor, exhibiting the highest centrality (22.35). Curriculum design was the second most important influencing factor.

Conclusion  The cultivation of critical thinking skills in medical education exhibits a multi-level interactive structure that encompasses individual, organizational, and institutional dimensions. Future efforts should focus on reinforcing the cognitive scaffolding role of knowledge construction and interdisciplinary curriculum design.