Healthcare Professionals: Reflection on Practice and Teamwork

This assignment presents a reflective analysis of a healthcare professional's experience as a care coordinator in a rehabilitation ward, utilizing the Gibbs reflective cycle. The narrative describes a challenging situation involving a 60-year-old stroke patient and a multidisciplinary team, highlighting issues such as poor communication, medication errors, and power struggles among team members. The professional reflects on the feelings of worry, confusion, and helplessness experienced during the incident. The evaluation stage identifies both negative aspects, such as the patient's distress and compromised care, and positive aspects, like the opportunity for personal and professional growth. The analysis delves into the root causes of the problems, including inadequate communication skills, power dynamics, and lack of trust within the team. The conclusion suggests improvements, such as team introductions, clear role assignments, and regular feedback sessions, to foster better teamwork and patient outcomes. The reflection underscores the importance of leadership, effective communication, and team building in providing person-centered and safe care within a healthcare setting.

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

1
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
Reflective practice may be defined as the capacity by which healthcare professionals can
reflect on action so that they can engage in the process of continuous learning throughout their
profession and career. Researchers have described the process as a reasoned thought (Barnard
2017). It can also be described as thinking whilst doing. Reflection on action is the approach that
helps healthcare professionals to experience as well as further analyze them to develop skills and
thereby helps in enhancement to further practices. There are also increased learning from an
experience or situation as well as help in promotion of deep learning (Day 2013). The other
benefits are the promotion of deepened learning that helps both in development of professional
roles as well as care services. It also helps in identification of the educational needs as well as
help in acquisition if new knowledge that takes place from the mistakes or the realisations one
has after the occurrence of the situation. This assignment would be mainly helping me to reflect
on my own experiences and thereby develop knowledge that would help me to evolve out as
better professional in the future. Gibbs cycle would be used as the reflective model in the
assignment.
The first step of the reflective cycle is called the description phase. This step mainly
involves the description of the event that had taken place that the healthcare professional would
be reflecting on. Due to my good clinical skills and ability to develop good relationship and
rapport with patients, the higher authority once gave me a chance to become a team leader of the
rehabilitation ward. The rehabilitation nurse manager as well as the care coordinator was not
present to handle a case and therefore the case was assigned to me where I had to mainly act as a
care coordinator in the multidisciplinary team. A sixty-year-old patient was transferred from the
emergency ward to the rehabilitation after her preliminary treatment of stroke that took place in
her house last night. I was given the responsibility to lead the multidisciplinary team who would

2
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
be caring for the patient and this included three junior nurses, two senior nurses, one
physiotherapist, one occupational therapist, one speech therapist, dietician, patient educator and
others. She had diabetes as well as foot ulcer and therefore, podologist was also required. As
treatment was initiated of the patient, much improper service, delivery was observed that
affected person centred as well as safe care to the patient. The patient’s family summoned me
and complained that the physiotherapist as well as the speech therapist had arrived at the same
time and argued in front of the patient about allocation of timing. Both of them were arguing
about who would be providing her service and within moments both of them left providing no
service to the patient. I was reported that a medication error had occurred where wrong dose was
given to the patient but luckily, it had not affected the patient largely. When I asked the junior
nurses, they blamed each other stating, documentation handwriting was wrong, other stating that
the junior nurse was not careful enough and many other excuses. Not only that, there were also
tremendous argument between the senior nurse who was an advanced nurse practitioner and the
dietician. The dietician provided a chart, which was not followed by the senior nurses, and she
made some changes in the diet plan of the patient. The junior nurses were also seen to not
communicate with the senior nurses. Junior nurses complained that the senior nurses treat them
unfairly and the senior nurses complained that they are not provided respect to their position.
Therefore, the care that was provided to the patient was neither patient centred nor safe and
therefore it failed to satisfy the patient. The family members lodged complaints and I was
advised to look into the matter with urgency.
The second step of the assignment is the feeling stage that states how the professional felt
at the time of the incident. At the very beginning, I was quite happy to get the responsibility of
the care coordinator and wanted to use this opportunity to develop experiences and develop an

3
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
understanding of my skills and knowledge. However, the incidents that took place back to back
made me quite worried. I was very scared at the ways the professionals were behaving as I felt
that their incompatibility in the team may not only fail to meet the entire goals and objectives of
the multidisciplinary team but would also threaten the life of the patient. I felt confused at the
same time, as I could not understand how to overcome such disastrous situations within the
multidisciplinary team member. I could not understand where to start my work, what initiatives
to take and how to implement them. The patient was getting affected each day and it made me
concern about her health as well. I was feeling helpless in the situation and for a moment, I
thought to meet the higher authority and handover the responsibility of care coordinator of the
team to any other expert professional. However, I decided that it would be an escapist activity
and professionals can never turn away their responsibility towards not only the organisation but
also the health of the patient. I gathered courage and tried to reflect on the activity so that I can
understand the mistakes in have made and how to overcome the mistakes to ensure proper care to
patient.
The next stage is the evaluation stage. This stage mainly involves description of the bad
as well as the good aspects of the incident that had taken place. The worse part of the incident
was that the health of the patient began was affected due to the various issues that took place
among the members of the healthcare team. It was seen that the patient had witnessed the
argument of the expert that had impacted her mentally and emotionally. Besides the shock of the
disorder that she was experiencing, she also had to witness professionals not providing her
respect and leaving without providing her service. These affected her autonomy and dignity and
she became depressed (Bassot 2015). Moreover, medication error took place and therefore she
became fearful and was highly anxious about her safety. Although, her health was not harmed, it

4
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
had the potential to bring out negative aspects on her health. She might had to take longer stay at
the hospital or her life could have been threatened. The no-cooperative environment among the
members were also exposing the members to risks of breaching the professional codes of
conduct which could have exposed them to illegal obligations if serious accidents would take
place. Other bad aspect was that the reputation of the hospital was affected. When such patient
would be discharged, her experience and her word of mouth may result in negative publicity of
the hospital that would reduce the consumer base of the hospital and also affect the brand name
of the hospital who is esteemed in providing person centred safe care in the city (Brotherton and
Parker 2013). The only good part of the incident was that it helped me to face such a challenging
situation so early in my life. This helped me to develop an idea about the various challenging
situations that I might face in the future of my professional career. This situation helped me to
get an exemplar of the situation that I might go through even when I become a leader in the
future. Another important good aspect was that it taught me that although I have good clinical
knowledge as well as make effective rapport with my patient, I do not have proper skills of
leading a team. I needed to develop team building and managing attributes so that I could have
managed the team effectively.
The next part of the reflection model is the analysis part where the professionals need to
make sense of the entire event and thereby reflect on the different aspects after proper analysis.
After the entire issue, I discussed with my mentor so that he can provide more light on the issue.
I also went through many evidence-based articles in order to realise the issues that were
culminating to such a tensed environment in the multidisciplinary team. The first issue that I
noticed was that they had improper skills for communication both verbal as well as non-verbal.
As they could not communicate with each other with empathy and in a friendly manner, it

5
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
prevented the development of relationship and strong bond among the members (Moss 2015).
Researchers are of the opinion that relationship among the members help in effective teamwork
where not only the work burden gets shared but also results in mental and emotional stability to
share their professional as well as personal issues in the workplace. Such relationship
development is also important on another aspect as it helps in development of trust among the
members (Valentine et al. 2015). Researchers have stated that development of trust in a team
helps in fostering communication that is more open and gives the employees a sense that they
truly are loved and wanted in the organisation (McInness et al. 2015). Development of trust helps
to avoid any conflicts in the workplace, develops commitment among the employees, reduces
stress and work burden, decreases fear and anxiety among members, prevents the sense of
avoiding of responsibilities and many others. It is seen that the members of the multidisciplinary
team did not share any bond with each other and never trusted each other. As a result, the
teamwork failed massively. Therefore, constant blames games were seen among the junior
nurses and this resulted in team failure (al-Sayah et al. 2014). Another issue that I also realised
was that there was power struggle among the different members of the team. Such power
struggles were seen both among the senior and junior nurses as well as between the senior nurse
and dietician and also among the speech therapist and physiotherapist. Power struggles have the
capability to fail massive assignments leading to poor teamwork, lack of bonding, ineffective
communicate, loss of productivity and many others. The professionals were found to be not
comfortable with each other and therefore so many issues were seen to rise in the team.
Moreover, they did not communicate among each other and this affected teamwork as well. They
were not sharing information about the patient with each other, this was culminating to
misconceptions among the other members, and hence medication errors, visits of the experts in

6
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
the same time to the patient and others were taking place (Endacott et al. 2015). Effective
feedback exchange sessions were not being conducted and this resulted in not only confusion in
the treatment but also feelings of the professionals towards each other could not be shared and
understood. An environment of transparency was absent that affected the teamwork.
The next stage of the assignment is called the conclusion stage. In this stage, the
professionals need to suggest the actions they should have taken to provide better outcomes of
the incident. After going through the evidence based journal articles and detailed discussion with
my mentor, I realised that the first initiate that I should have taken after the formation of the team
was to introduce each other. Short induction session along with proper introduction and role
clarity would have prevented any form of miscommunication among the members. I should have
called a meeting and should have assigned the goals and objectives of each of the member so that
confusions among them could be prevented. Moreover, there was an urgent need for the
arrangement of feedback exchange sessions once in every week where the members would be
discussing their concerns and at the same time would be providing valuable constructive
feedback. These could have helped in breaking the idea between the professionals and would
have helped them to develop ideas about each other (Page et al. 2016). Gradually they should
have developed bonds with each and this would have helped in developing trust. I should have
also arranged for a training session where healthcare stalwarts would help the entire team to
understand the disadvantages and negative aspects of power struggle and the ways this hampers
the health of the patients. He would also help to provide suggestions by which members should
overcome ego and develop emotional intelligence that would prevent the power struggle between
the embers. This would have made the professionals to be more accountable for their activities
and would have made them more responsible to their work. Moreover, I should have helped

7
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
them to develop their communication skills by referring them to workshops or training session so
that their body language and verbal skills would also develop.
The last stage of the reflection cycle is development of the action plan stage where the
professionals would take up initiatives to make themselves more skilful and knowledgeable. I
realised that I tend to become tensed when adverse situation takes place and feel helpless. I get
concerned thinking that I will fail to handle the situation. I realised that I do not have self-
regulation skills. High emotional intelligence can regulate my emotions (Endacott et al. 2015). It
is an important part of emotional intelligence and therefore I would try to develop my emotional
intelligence. I should go through evidence-based papers where recommendations of the
researchers would help me to understand the ways by which I can develop them. Moreover, I
also realised I do not have proper ideas about how to manage teams effectively and the exact
steps that I need to take to maintain a transparent working environment. I would be joining
workshops from where I will be learning the team building attributes and my mentor there would
help me to learn the strategies by which I can manage team effectively. I also do not have critical
analytical skills and problem solving skills and therefore I could not understand the steps is could
have taken at that moment of the incident. For these, I will consult with my mentor and other
stalwarts about how to develop the skills. I will also continue reflective practises as this will also
help me to develop my analysing skills effectively.
Conclusion:
With the help of effective reflective practice, I successfully reflected on an incident and
was able to gain an understanding of the skills I lack. It also helped me to understand the steps
that I would be taking when such situations would repeat in the future. From the reflective

8
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
practices, I have been able to identify the skills that I lack. This identification has been beneficial
to me as it has helped me to identify the aspects on which I should focus on. I belive if I am able
to work on thses skills, I can develop as a better leader in the future and reach the zenith of
success.

9
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
References:
Al Sayah, F., Szafran, O., Robertson, S., Bell, N.R. and Williams, B., 2014. Nursing perspectives
on factors influencing interdisciplinary teamwork in the Canadian primary care setting. Journal
of Clinical Nursing, 23(19-20), pp.2968-2979.
Barnard , A. (ed) 2017 Developing Professional Practice in Health and Social Care. Routledge,
Oxon
Bassot B 2015. The Reflective Practice Guide. Routledge Page 3 of 3
Brotherton, G and Parker S (eds.) 2013. Your Foundation in Health & Social Care (2nd edition).
Sage Publications Ltd
Day, J. 2013 Interprofessional working: an Essential Guide for Health and Social Care
Professionals. 2 nd edition. Cengage Learning. Hampshire
Endacott, R., Bogossian, F.E., Cooper, S.J., Forbes, H., Kain, V.J., Young, S.C., Porter, J.E. and
First2Act Team, 2015. Leadership and teamwork in medical emergencies: performance of
nursing students and registered nurses in simulated patient scenarios. Journal of clinical
nursing, 24(1-2), pp.90-100.
McInnes, S., Peters, K., Bonney, A. and Halcomb, E., 2015. An integrative review of facilitators
and barriers influencing collaboration and teamwork between general practitioners and nurses
working in general practice. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(9), pp.1973-1985.
Moss B 2015. Communication Skills in Health and Social Care (3rd Edition). Sage Publications
Ltd

10
REFLECTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
Page, J.S., Lederman, L., Kelly, J., Barry, M.M. and James, T.A., 2016. Teams and teamwork in
cancer care delivery: Shared mental models to improve planning for discharge and coordination
of follow-up care. Journal of oncology practice, 12(11), pp.1053-1058.
Valentine, M.A., Nembhard, I.M. and Edmondson, A.C., 2015. Measuring teamwork in health
care settings: a review of survey instruments. Medical care, 53(4), pp.e16-e30.