Clinical reasoning is considered a core skill in medical practice that will become even more important as medical practitioners are increasingly presented with complex and global medical problems. How expert clinicians reach accurate diagnosis when presented with such problems, and how these expert diagnostic processes can be made explicit and digestible to medical students remain nebulous. In this paper we therefore aim to present a novel conceptualization of clinical reasoning skills by incorporating critical thinking, reflection and creativity as elements of clinical reasoning. Such a holistic conceptualization may help in devising appropriate pedagogical strategies for facilitating the tuition and development of clinical reasoning in a globalized world.