Being part of a team is something that I have been very accustom to throughout my pre-university working career. I previously worked as part of a team as a physiotherapy assistant at a local hospital where working as part of a physiotherapy team was vital. During this time, it became apparent that working as part of an integrated team with other healthcare workers was important for patient safety and to optimise patient care (1), this allowed me to enter university with an open mind in regards to working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

Being part of a team means being able to build, maintain and promote effective interpersonal relationships (2), an aspect I tried to achieve whilst out on placement. I have sought to achieve this due to the importance understanding each other’s role has on trust, collaborative working, and producing high-quality care (1,3). Therefore, during placement 3 I pursued spending time with different teams during my community placement (evidenced – Placement 3: Feedback on Opportunities to Learn About New Areas) such as care of the elderly, rehab centres, nursing and falls teams in order to better understand the multi-disciplinary framework I was working within to produce high-quality care whilst attempting to build, maintain and promote effective interpersonal relationships within the community setting I was placed within (1,2). This is something that was encouraged during the early stages of our course during our interprofessional collaboration and development module, where we were put into teams of physiotherapist, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists where concepts such as communication and stereotyping within the workplace were highlighted and addressed. We reflected on a team-based project we completed (evidenced – Interprofessional Collaboration and Development Assignment) where I found that stereotyping can cloud judgement and inhibit communication within healthcare (4,5). I made a conscious decision and decided to not allow pre-conceived opinions to effect communication within a team setting as this is a method in which to build, maintain and promote effective interpersonal relationships (2), demonstrating this domain effectively. This has highlighted to me the importance of working together for patients as one team and through not allowing stereotyping to interfere in teamwork, communication can improve within an MDT, something I shall continue throughout my physiotherapy career.

Working as part of a team involves an ability to work collaboratively with others to achieve shared goals (2). During this current pandemic situation with Covid-19 having a widespread effect on society and the NHS healthcare system (6), myself as a student felt compelled to step up and assist the NHS where we could, but I and many others were illegible due to not completing enough of our course, but mine and many others offers did not go unnoticed (evidenced – Email: Wanting to Support the NHS). This was something I felt I wanted to do as this was effecting so many people and I felt the need to do my bit, where I believe I demonstrate key values of: altruism -  to selflessly help with no benefit other than a sense of pride to help others, advocacy – to support my educators and the profession of healthcare as a whole and compassion & caring – for patients and the healthcare workers in order to put the needs of service users at the centre of decision-making (2)(7). In addition to this, Covid-19 is still very prevalent and I believe it is important to engage with relevant professional and social contexts, therefore I have proactively taken it upon myself to complete some online CPD on physiotherapy in Covid-19 patients (evidenced – CPD: Role of Physiotherapy Covid-19) in order to be able to work more effectively and collaboratively with others to achieve a shared goal to be able to fulfil the duty of care and social responsability all healthcare workers must (2,8).

I have taken opportunities to work within teams in order to effectively learn and develop, during my fourth placement in a community hospital MSK outpatient setting, I was able to take part in in-service training on anterior knee pain (evidenced - In-Service Training) where I was able to work with others to maintain and develop the effective performance of teams (2). This continued during different aspects of the course where I was able to assist fellow students with basic life support training techniques (evidenced – BLS Teaching) and being a model patient during first year MSc viva’s (evidenced – Assisting 1^st Year Student with Viva’s) in order to test and practice their practical skills for future placements. Where I believe I demonstrate a commitment to not only my own, but others excellence, and working with others to maintain and develop the effective performance of teams (2). The domain promoting integration and teamwork is vitally important in healthcare and is something that should continuously be strived to improve within healthcare in order to produce the most effective patient-centre care approach, and this will be something I shall continue to do throughout my career. This has made me realise that I can act in different ways to achieve this, such as continuing my own reading around topics of importance and assisting others in their knowledge and understanding. These are simple tasks but can have big impacts on teamwork and team-integration, something that I shall be aware of and continue.

Reference List

1. Babiker A, El Husseini M, Al Nemri A, Al Frayh A, Al Juryyan N, Faki MO, et al. Health care professional development: Working as a team to improve patient care. Sudan J Paediatr [Internet]. 2014 [cited 2020 May 24];14(2):9–16. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27493399
2. Physiotherapy CS of. Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Framework [Internet]. 2013 [cited 2020 Mar 23]. Available from: http://www.csp.org.uk/professional-union/careers-development/cpd/csp-eportfolio/my-eportfolio/cpd-
3. Rosen MA, DiazGranados D, Dietz AS, Benishek LE, Thompson D, Pronovost PJ, et al. Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. Am Psychol. 2018 May 1;73(4):433–50.
4. Cook K, Stoecker J. Healthcare Student Stereotypes: A Systematic Review with Implications for Interprofessional Collaboration. J Res Interprof Pract Educ. 2014 Nov;4(2).
5. Barnes D, Carpenter J, Dickinson C. Interprofessional education for community mental health: Attitudes to community care and professional stereotypes. Soc Work Educ [Internet]. 2000 Dec [cited 2019 Apr 15];19(6):565–83. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02615470020002308
6. COVID-19: Five dimensions of impact | The Health Foundation [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 2]. Available from: https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/blogs/covid-19-five-dimensions-of-impact
7. Charted Society of Physiotherapy. Chartered Society of Physiotherapy xx Professional Values of Members’ Code and Behaviour 2 Code of Members’ Professional Values and Behaviours [Internet]. 2019 [cited 2019 Apr 9]. Available from: https://www.csp.org.uk/system/files/csp_code_of_professional_values_behaviour_full.pdf
8. Chartered Society of Physiotherapy xx Professional Values of Members’ Code and Behaviour 2 Code of Members’ Professional Values and Behaviours [Internet]. [cited 2019 Aug 12]. Available from: https://www.csp.org.uk/system/files/csp_code_of_professional_values_behaviour_full.pdf