(PDF) Reflection in Healthcare

Running head: REFLECTION IN HEALTHCARE
REFLECTION IN HEALTHCARE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Interdisciplinary teamwork is one of the most important models that help in delivering
high quality care to patients and their family members. Teamwork in the domain of healthcare
can be defined as two or more people who interact interdependently with a common purpose and
thereby is seen to work towards betterment of the quality of life of the patient. moreover, teams
are mainly seen to work towards measurable goals which help in benefitting from leadership
that in turn helps to maintain stability while encouraging honest discussion and hence problem
solving (Nacarella et al. 2017). Teamwork is mainly seen to employ the practice of collaboration
as well as enhanced communication. These help to expand the traditional roles of the healthcare
workers and thereby to make decisions that work towards the common goals. Healthcare in turn
is therefore called to be a multidisciplinary profession in which doctors, nurses, healthcare
experts from different backgrounds are seen to communicate and act along with the patients and
the caregivers to ensure quality life of the patients (Coyne et al. 2016). Often in many cases, it is
seen that failure of effective teamwork result patients and their family members to suffer more.
Patients may be seen to be remaining hospitalised for more than the stipulated time, readmission
of the patients, preventable deaths, medication error effects and many others. Again, there are
examples where effective teamwork has helped patient to recover back to a fitter life with proper
activities of daily living (Strong et al. 2016). Patients were even heard to say that they feel fitter
than before they were diagnosed with the disorder. Therefore, effective teamwork is indeed seen
to be of higher importance for error free high quality safe care to patients by the
multidisciplinary teams for curing the patient. the assignment will mainly focus on the important
aspects of teamwork through an effective reflection through Gibbs cycle. It mainly includes
important steps like description of the event, feelings derived from the event as well as

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evaluation of the event. It would also contain analysis of the event, conclusion and thereby action
plan for the event.
Description:
We were given the responsibility of conducting a role-play session that comprised of eight
important persons who needed to work in as a team for the assignment. We were supposed to
conduct a role-play of caring for a patient named Valerie who was affected by Alzheimer’s and
her husband David was the main carer of the person. I was provided the role of David who
usually conducted all the caring activities of the patient named Valerie. The other members were
seen to be district nurses, occupational therapist, physiotherapist as well as registrar. The role-
play assignment had helped to understand a large number of important factors that are very
important in the working of the multidisciplinary team member. At first we were excited about
the assignment. However, we did not have any kind of planning to proceed with the assignment.
One evening, we decided to sit together and plan the ways by which we would be presenting our
assignment. However, on the very day, two of the members did not arrive and even did not
inform us. The rest of the members who arrived in the meeting became demotivated as they
thought that all the members are not responsible enough to attend the very first meeting of the
assignment. However, we had to start the meeting with the present members as time was very
short and we had to complete large number of activities within the very short time. however,
after the meeting began, we saw that none of the members where supporting each other’s views
and they were very adamant in putting their own views. they wanted their own suggestions to be
selected for the presentation and role play and did not like to hear about the others. One of the
members become so frustrated that he left the place as his suggestions were not selected by the
team. The rest of the members tried their based to to come up with different suggestions but at

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the same time they were overriding other suggestions and trying to put forward their own
suggestions. None of the members were active listeners and did not provide time for the other
members to complete the strategy that each was trying to say. The entire meeting was not fruitful
as we could not reach to a particular point and the present members were frustrated. however I
tried my best to make all the members motivated but none of them tried to handle the present
situation effectively. I gave the duty to one of the friend who was to call the different members
and finalize the time of the next meeting. However, many members who did not turn out on the
next meeting. When the reason was asked for the absence, some of the members stated that they
were not even informed. Therefore, blame game started and everyone was blaming each other
and that also resulted in the failure of the next meeting. there arose many situations while
practicing together where one of the members argued with another members and both of them
left the practice session without even making the other persons know about the causes. All these
demoralized us to a great extent and we become quite concerned about how the role play will
finally take place. As days were coming closer, most of the members were seen to be stressed as
they were not sure about how the other persons would be collaborating with them when they
would be presenting their rolls. They were concerned about how improper act by the other
members would affect their own roles as well. However, the work that was represented finally
did not go well as many important lines were missed and none of the members could provide
their best performance. It was after the incident that I went to the mentor and discussed about the
entire scenario that took place in the entire practice sessions. He pointed out a number of issues
which I could not realise at first. It was only after his detailed analysis of the situation which
made me understand the very mistakes that we made while planning and conducting teamwork to
exhibit our performance

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Feeling:
I had developed a very negative feeling about the entire preparation stage of the role play.
Initially I was very excited after getting my role. I thought that all the members of the team
would act collaboratively in order to make the presentation successful but it was seen that many
of the members were not ready to compromise their ego and differences among themselves. As
days passed on and different types of issues began to grow up among the team members, I started
feeling quite tense in all these situations. I was scared about the impact of the disputes that were
taking place among the members. I knew that all these issues occurring among the team
members would ultimately affect the output of the teamwork and as a result of this, the
presentation might not shape up as beautifully as I imagined. With the passing of days I started
becoming more concerned as I came to understand that the presentation was not taking a good
shape. In the ending Phase, I was completely devastated as I knew that none of the members
would be able to give their best shots at the presentation. at one time I felt like not participating
in the team anymore as I knew that the presentation might impact my image in front of my
professor. However my inner self instructed me not to back out at such a crucial situation and try
my best to fight with this situation. Therefore I tried to regain back my enthusiasm and courage
and tried my best to motivate my team members. However, my motivating the team members at
the end stage of the preparation phase did not help much on the final day. The presentation did
not come out successfully and there were many flaws in the presentation. After the presentation
was over, I was completely shattered because of the devastating performance of each of the
members. It was after this incident, the team members came to understand that the behaviours
they portrayed in during the preparation phase was not apt. All of us started feeling guilty about
our approaches as well as our behaviours throughout the phase. I felt thoroughly disappointed

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after the presentation and I decided that I need to reflect on the incident so that I can gain an
insight from this incident and thereby never repeat this form of behaviour in the future. All my
friends agreed to this decision and they all decided to reflect on their performance so that they
can provide better teamwork in the future.
Evaluation:
The experience was highly negative. The behaviours and attitudes of the team members were
totally unprofessional (eresford et al. 2018). Such unprofessional attitude had the capability of
affecting the performance of each of the member and thereby not only resulted in poor
representation of team work but also made each of the members get poor marks in the
assignments. The healthcare team did not communicate among themselves effectively and did
not practice together. All of them practices separately and therefore the dialogues that they
exhibited were not aligning with each other. Therefore the common goal could not be achived. It
was seen that the team members were more involved in the power struggles and were busy
mainly in defending their own self and did not take any initiative by which they can provide
effective teamwork. They did not take any initiative to develop any bonding with each other’s
and therefore the no observable changes were noticed in the performance of the team members
when group practice was being carried on. (Senft et al. 2018). They had not sat together and
calked out the common goal. They did not set their own individual objectives that would have
helped in the meeting of the bigger goal. They continued to blame each other and therefore this
proved that they had no bond among themselves. It was unprofessional and insensitive to speak
in this manner they were speaking and arguing among themselves this increased the negative

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feeling that appeared among themselves. This results in development of feeling of hopelessness
in each of the member themselves as they were gradually starting to understand that they would
fail miserably to meet the goal. They were not at all responsible and are in turn trying to put the
blame of improper performance on the others (Peocter & Rednor 2014). The difficult situation
was not resolving at all, as neither of the team members were accepting their fault, coming to a
discussion session and try their best to work collaboratively. They were adamant with their one
decision and from all these, the quality of the main presentation was getting affected. The team
was neither working collaboratively among themselves nor were trying their best to overcome
the differences. The feedbacks were not at all constructive but rather demeaning that affected the
morale of the person whom the feedback was given. It was very strenuous situation that was
impacting the preparation of the entire presentation.(Kotecha et al. 2015). At the same time,
time that was available to us was also short and this added to the tension. The only good part of
the incidence was that the failure of the presentation helped the members release that their
attitudes and behaviours towards teamwork was not only poor but was also inappropriate in a
professional field (VanDongen et al. 2016). This incident helped us to realise that such issues
may creep up in our future careers as well as when we will be working in a multidisciplinary
team. It gave the scope to us to learn from our mistakes so that we never repeat them anymore.
Moreover, the team members should understand that each of the actions they take have impact
on the health of the patients and her family members and accordingly they should develop skills,
knowledge values and others to provide effective care and ensure effective teamwork. The good
thing therefore was that it helped me realise the necessity of certain important aspects of
teamwork and thereby would develop skills by which I can, not only take part in collaborative
team making but also take part in effective caring for patients by providing them holistic care.

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Analysis:
From the entire situation, I realised some of the main issues that were resulting in poor teamwork
among the members. I had to go through several evidenced based articles where I had to relate
the case scenarios with that of the evidenced that were provided by the researchers. It was seen
that the main foundation of the teamwork was trust. This attribute was seen to be completely
absent from the team that was formed for the presentation. The team members were seen to not
trust each other. Moreover, there was power struggle that was observed among the different
members. Such power struggles were one of the main reasons that were affecting them to act in a
collaborative manner (Mosadegrad et al. 2015). The main reason of the power struggle can be
attributed to a number of factors. In healthcare sectors, power struggle results from improper
organisational culture. Researchers are of the opinion that organisations, which develop a
working culture, which are more open and transparent, and influence constructive feedback
giving and receiving sessions help to maintain clarity among the professionals (Wilson et al.
2014). Because of this clarity, they are seen to indulge in effective relationship development and
bonding among the team members. The team members are found to be sharing their feelings as
well as their advices and suggestions with each other and therefore these results them in being
associated with each other and thereby working collaboratively. Trust is one of the most
important aspects that is also found to be extremely important for the development of proper
teams. When team members are seen to trust each other, the development of collaborative work
output is also seen to be higher. Therefore the main issues that are seen to be present among the
team was the presence of power struggle, no bonding, lack of trust, lack of transparency (Heale
et al. 2014). Lack of communication among the members of the teams was been evident from the
scenario where the members did not communicate each other about the meeting dates and time

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properly resulting many of them to miss the meetings and practice sessions. None of them were
seen to communicate with each other and therefore did not know what others were following. In
real scenario of healthcare centres, it is important for healthcare teams to communicate the
interventions that they have decided for the patients so that they can align with the common
goals and help in curing for the symptoms effectively. Otherwise, lack of communication may
result in medication errors, unaligned treatment procedures, long waiting time of the patient,
duplicated treatments and many others (Weaver et al. 2014). Such issues also affects the
providing of holistic care to the patients and the caregivers and such behaviours make the
patients and caregivers nervous and tensed (Hewitt et al. 2015). Effective teamwork may result
from active listening skills, higher levels of emotional intelligence among the members, proper
unity and bonding and effective sharing of constructive feedback. This analysis would help me to
develop proper skills of team working and hence become a best team member to my colleagues.
Conclusion:
From the entire incident I realised that there were some of the initiatives that I could have taken
that would have resulted in betterment of the scenario. I would have first suggested the members
to arrange for a group meeting where every of the professionals would be contributing their
suggestions and thereby coming in alignment with a common goal that everyone should work
for. They should hold weekly meetings where they would be discussing about the evaluation of
the performance and the new requirements and skills that each of the members needs to
inculcate. Effective communication would have helped in reduction of the different negative
emotions among the members against each other’s and would have helped in the development of
bond with the team members (Klemen et al. 2017). Moreover, each one of them should be
provided the advice of importance of respect for each other in a team and the concept of

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emotional intelligence should have been discussed among them. I should have helped them build
strong relationship with them through effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills. I
would have engaged each one of them in effective decision-making and teach them the
importance of taking consent from others while planning for a strategy. The team should have
gone for several informal outings where discussions other than presentation should have been
done. This would have helped in developing emotional and mental attachments with each other.
This should have positive aspect on the entire presentation.
Action plan:
In order to develop an effective team bonding for the healthcare members, it is important for all
the members including me to engage in effective workshops on development of communication
skills. Such communication skills would help the individuals to develop skills by which they can
express their concerns and emotions effectively which would prevent power struggles and help
in development of bonds. Moreover, it is also important for the members to go through different
types of evidence based articles where the researchers have provided recommendations for
effective development of teams. This would help in formation of teams who show collaborative
work output and are helping the patients and the caregivers (Rodrigue et al. 2016). Moreover, it
also becomes very important for the professionals to attend training classes by which they will be
able to understand the importance of feedback sharing and active listening for working in teams.
This would help in development of effective teams by which high quality care can be provided to
patients.

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Conclusion:
From the entire discussion, it become quite clear that effective team work in healthcare is
extremely important to provide high quality safe care in the patients. It has been seen that
effective bonding and trust among the teams are extremely important. Moreover, communication
among the embers ensure reducing errors in healthcare like medication errors, long waiting
times, hospital readmission and many others. It was seen that the power struggles and poor
communication among the members resulted in poor output on each of their performance and
failure of the presentation. Therefore, effective teamwork is extremely important for providing of
holistic care to patients as well as their caregivers not only to cure their physical symptoms but
also to look after their mental and emotional stability and to reduce pressures on them. The
reflective cycle has helped me realise such important facts about healthcare team members and
their contributions effectively. This would help my knowledge and skill development largely.

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