When we go to hospital the general preconception is that we are treated by doctors, however, what most people don’t realise is just how many different health care professionals are involved in the treatments and care that we receive. I have chosen to base my assignment on team work in hospitals and the effect of different relationships on patient care.

Despite the many benefits that multidisciplinary teams do have, problems also arise. Doctors are only human and so occasionally there will be communication breakdown. Communication is vital for patient care and when there’s a breakdown not only do patients receive a slower service but in a worst-case scenario it can lead to avoidable death. Another problem is that when many people are in charge of a patients care then it means they all require access to the patient’s information. This increases the risk of confidentiality being breached and also, not all patients understand this and may consent to this without realising or could refuse to give consent.

Working in a team can be demotivating, especially when you are left to sort out someone else’s mess,1 or if you’re blamed for a mistake. This can often lead to poor group dynamics, the incomplete work and hostility – all of which cause an indirect or direct impact on the patients care. In other situations it may be the group leader who isn’t suitable for the team. A leader is needed so that someone is there to take control and delegate. Leaders should have certain qualities such as earn respect from other team professionals, listen to other people’s opinions, organised, trustworthy, inspiring and constantly moving forward. The leader should also put clarify each individual role to make other appreciate the work that their co-workers do. However, in some multidisciplinary team’s the leader can be arrogant, unorganised, unsupportive and overpowering. This causes resentment within the team and means that team members become unmotivated, uninspired, unwilling to cooperate and it also makes it harder to communicate effectively. As an impact on patient care, not only can patients detect the hostility but the care they receive is of a much lower standard.

My artwork is a collage of a flower; I have chosen to use a flower because the different components of a flower help to give it strength and stability. This corresponds to the structure of multi-disciplinary teams where each individual contributes to the overall team effect.

Another reason for choosing a flower is because the petals of a flower are there to provide and protect the reproductive parts of the flower at its centre. I have reflected this in my collage by using a metaphor where patients form the middle of the flower. Patient care is the foremost purpose of a multidisciplinary team and the health care team act as petals to protect and provide for the patient.

I have chosen to use each petal to represent a different profession of the health care team. The red petal consists of surgeons with red representing blood and the danger that surgery causes. One of the roles of surgery in medicine is to help patients in life or death situations such as removing cancers for example. Surgery also helps us to maintain our quality of life such as a total hip replacement.

The yellow petal consists of paramedics whose role within the team is to go to help those in an emergency and bring them to the hospital. When paramedics hand over patients to doctors it is essential that they inform doctors of vital information such as any drugs given, how they were found, what happened at the accident and how stable they are.

On the orange petal are nurses. The role of nurses within a multidisciplinary team is increasing and often their work can go unnoticed. Nurses provide general patient care such as administering medication that the doctor has prescribed, washing the patient, helping them to the toilet, taking blood tests. Nurses are also important because they provide emotional support for patients and their families – something which doctors may not have time for.

Doctors are represented on the blue petal; their role within a multidisciplinary team is the most well-known. Many patients wrongly think that the doctor has the biggest role within the team, however they’re work is part of a combined effort in patient care. A doctor’s role may vary but most commonly they are there to diagnose a patient, prescribe treatment and devise care plans.

The fifth petal which is purple represents the technicians that are essentially ‘behind the scenes.’ Technicians have little patient contact yet the work they do is essential to help doctors diagnose the patient. Such professions include pathologists, radiographers, medical photographers and cardiographers. They communicate by sending results to doctors after analysing a set of data.

After explaining each role of the professions I have used, it is easy to see how they all inter-connect and combine to co-operate and help each other. I feel that this encourages everyone to support each other as they’re all part of an interconnected network. This means that each individual can cope with failure more easily as a mistake or death of a patient can never be solely one individuals fault.

Each individual role within the multidisciplinary team is unique and equal and I think a flower represents this well as all the petals balance each other out. However, I chose to use different colours for each health care profession to show that they are unequal in some aspects. All health care professionals are unequal in experience, expertise and ability. This is what makes multidisciplinary teams better than just an individual on their own.

At the bottom of the collage I chose three words that I thought epitomise the relationships that the professionals have in combination. The three words I chose were teamwork, roles and communication. The word communication is bigger and more central to depict its importance.

My interpretation of the collage is that it is just one individual flower taken from a bunch of different flowers. There are many different multidisciplinary teams across many areas of medicine – both primary and secondary care, and each team is focused and built around a patient.

(extract from a Bristol Medical School WPC assignment)

References

1 Gorman P, Managing multidisciplinary teams in the NHS, London, Kogan Page Limited;1998