Introduction
Collaborative and teamwork-oriented nursing is essential for delivering high-quality patient care as it relies heavily on interdisciplinary teamwork. According to Rubenfeld & Scheffer (2015), various communication styles within multidisciplinary teams are often prone to conflict and may hinder patient care practices. However, if dealt with properly, conflict could only be a source of positive improvement and deeper collaboration among the team members. This essay will examine how conflict can be used constructively in nursing to develop interdisciplinary teamwork and collaboration and mention the leading team roles highlighted by Bensimon and Neumann.
Utilizing Conflict for Positive Interdisciplinary Teamwork:
Meeting the needs of individuals and teams in an interdisciplinary setting can be a challenge due to the variance of personal preferences, priorities, and patient care approaches. Though an alternative definition of conflict can be to see it as an obstacle, the team’s ability to rally together amidst the challenge could be a stepping stone for development and innovation (Zajac et al., 2021). By adopting conflict as an inherent part of team interaction, nurses could learn to leverage it to enrich communication, stimulate critical thinking, increase collaboration, and evolve standards. Disputes trigger a robust dialogue between teammates, among whom people start sharing their perspectives and feelings freely, contributing to the overall perception of the team. Dialogue can be productive since some disputing views can be investigated and insight gained into the critical issues. Conflicts often draw team players to think critically and re-examine their beliefs and practices to gain insight into mean-echoing solutions to complex patient care problems. Settling conflict demands joint work and possible compromise between teammates as individuals get to understand and trust one another even more. A team culture ready for collaboration is put in place. The resolution procedures present avenues for self-reflection and learning that enable nurses to review their past conflicts and make needed changes to lead to better teams and more successful nurse-patient outcomes in their subsequent encounters. In general, by utilizing conflict as a generator of positive change, nurses can fully exploit its dynamics to ensure the convergence of interdisciplinary nurses and medicine professionals.
Examining Essential Team Thinking Roles
According to Rubenfeld and Scheffer (2015), eight team-thinking roles are crucial for interdisciplinary teamwork to be successful. Among these tasks, the ones that work as a definer, analyst, critic, interpreter, synthesizer, monitor of disparity, monitor of the task, and monitor of emotions are among the main ones that can be found in the group thinking process and community effectiveness. Below, I will discuss the importance of two of these roles and provide examples from nursing practice:
The Definer (Voices and Creates the Team’s Reality): The role of a definer can create an understanding of the problems that need to be addressed and the team’s vision. This particular role can define the context and the purpose of discussions within the team. In nursing practice, the definer’s role addresses the patient’s health identification by clearly spelling out one’s condition, pinpointing essential factors, and outlining priorities for treatment. One of the numerous scenarios to highlight the nurse’s role is through a multidisciplinary round. The nurse agrees with the patient’s plan of care due to the need for frequent assessment of the vital signs to manage a deteriorating medical condition. Others on the team see the definer’s role as essential to making the discussion more explicit and ending up with a commonly agreed outcome. Through the process of defining and shaping her reality, the informant forms and develops the concept that is referred to as the team’s reality, which is like the foundation to make the entire team in harmony and move toward the cooperative goals that are affecting the quality of the team thinking process.
The Emotional Monitor (Addresses the Human, Personal, and Emotional Aspects of Team Thinking): The emotional monitor work is a vital part whereby it involves the emotional dynamics within the team, the consideration of psychological safety, and the team member’s wellness. As the moving supervisor, a nurse can recognize and validate team members’ feelings, then de-escalate tensions during disputes and eventually produce a cohesive, supportive team (Mei-Chi & OUYANG 2023). An instance is a tough case of patient care where a nurse can act by asking their colleagues for emotional support and offering warm words to those who need encouragement. Helping them discuss their emotional issues could have cropped up during the scenario. One of the other crew members declares that the moral monitor’s role is vital for keeping the members’ morale high, strengthening the team, and avoiding conflicts going out of hand by moderating them early. Through the emotional monitor addressing the emotional and human aspects of teamwork, communication in the workplace is improved, and team members feel valued, appreciated, and respected, contributing to an environment of openness and effective communication. As a result, collaboration and teamwork are added.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the conflict is analyzed from a mistaken idea perspective, but in the end, it can be counted as a means of strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration among nurses. A nurse should not perceive conflict as something not to be attached to, like leprosy anyway, but rather apply conflict to bring in team members to discuss, critically thinking, and, finally, work in progress. Specific group thinking functions that signify the attitude of a group, such as an empathizer and emotional monitor, have also contributed to the team thinking process being executed more smoothly and encouraging teamwork. The nurses are saddled with these responsibilities, which, therefore, shall hugely impact the final picture where a cooperative team is created, and the team is also progressively oriented more towards achieving positive outcomes.
References
Rubenfeld, M. G., & Scheffer, B.K. (2015). Critical thinking TACTICS for nurses: Achieving the IOM competencies (3rd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett https://annas-archive.org/md5/d7763deb9aeb24fcb9b1e87a06acce4c
Mei-Chi, H. S. U., & OUYANG, W. C. (2023). Lived Experience of Violence Perpetrated by Treated Patients and Their Visitors in Intensive Care Units: A Qualitative Study of Nurses. Journal of Nursing Research, 31(4), e284. https://journals.lww.com/jnr-twna/fulltext/2023/08000/Lived_Experience_of_Violence_Perpetrated_by.5.aspx
Zajac, S., Woods, A., Tannenbaum, S., Salas, E., & Holladay, C. L. (2021). Overcoming challenges to teamwork in healthcare: a team effectiveness framework and evidence-based guidance. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 606445. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.606445/full
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