6 NOVEMBER 2024
Working in teams
Team work is really important in all areas of healthcare.
A successful team works above the sum of the individuals. Being an effective and cooperative team member is important in making this happen, and it is something your interviewers will almost certainly wish to explore with you.
Why is being able to work as a member of a team important?
- Firstly, if you haven’t already done so, you need to recognise that teamwork is essential in virtually all areas of healthcare.
- On an informal level you will have to liaise with a very wide range of colleagues such as nurses, clinical lab specialists, porters and cleaners.
- All members of the hospital, or wherever it is that you will be working, should be respected for the work they do in their role, and you should recognise that your job could almost certainly not run smoothly without the effectiveness of other roles.
- On a more formal level, you may have to present on ward rounds or contribute to multi-disciplinary meetings (MDTs), cancer specialist meetings or trauma meetings, where cooperation with colleagues is absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the patient/s being discussed.
Why do we need good team work in medicine and all other areas of healthcare?
Effective team working can:
- Improve patient outcomes
- Reduce medical errors
- Increase patient safety
- Improve patient mortality rates
- Lead to better staff outcomes
- Decrease staff stress
- Increases staff morale and improve job satisfaction
No doubt, you can think of many other positives that come from effective team working.
How do you demonstrate in your interview that you can work as part of a team?
Although you may not immediately realise it, there are several areas where you may have already worked as an effective member of team, and about which you can talk in your interview.
- Are you a prefect, or do you have some other role of responsibility in your school, where you have to work cooperative with others?
- Do you play a team sport, where you take directions from the captain? Or perhaps you are the captain and have to work out how to get the best from your team?
- Do you play in the school orchestra, or some other musical group?
- Have you been part of a team working towards Duke of Edinburgh awards.
- Some people are members of the Scouts or Girlguiding, where working as part of a team is central.
- Perhaps it’s part-time paid or voluntary work you do, where you have to work with others.
- Even at home, you may have taken turns to look after a dog or a sick member of your family such as a grandparent or vulnerable child.
In the interview
It is very important to express clearly that you have good teamworking skills and to demonstrate this with real examples, which may be some of those listed above. You want your interviewers to feel that who they have in front of them is someone who can present good ideas in a professional and polite manner – in other words a good team player!
Even if you have not worked directly in a team, you will almost certainly have witnessed effective team work in your work experience. You can talk about how you recognised the positive elements of this.
Quality not Quantity
Some people try to swamp their interviewers with several and wide-ranging experiences. This may fail to illustrate the depth of your teamworking ability, so it can be better to have a smaller number of examples that you can discuss in detail, rather than may examples that you mention only superficially.
It may help you prepare for questions on teamwork by thinking about the different roles commonly encountered in a team. All are important, and all are equally valid.
Roles within a team:
LEADER: makes sure the team has clear objectives and that its members are engaged. CHALLENGER: questions effectiveness and drives for results.
DO-ER: encourages progress and takes on practical jobs.
THINKER: produces ideas and thinks through those proposed by others.
SUPPORTER: eases tension and promotes harmony.
It might be helpful, when thinking about teamworking in medicine, to reflect on part of the Code of Professional Conduct of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. It states that:
All nurses are expected to work co-operatively within teams and to respect the skills, expertise and contributions of colleagues. Colleagues must be treated fairly and without discrimination.
Although directed at nurses and midwives, this code could apply equally to any area of healthcare.
If you would like to read more about good teamworking, the following paper from the Royal College of Physicians may be of interest: