Why Med School Students Need Teamwork Skills

Medical School. It’s practice for … “practice.” It’s about communication. Leadership. Problem-Solving. Quality care. A common vision. Medical students need to know how to communicate with their peers and superiors—and more importantly their patients. Teamwork skills foster the listening and delegation skills critical to a physician’s success.

Teamwork is critical in five major areas for you, the budding physician: clinical care, reduction in errors, increased confidence, ease of working, and ease of learning. Let’s dig deeper and take a closer look.

1. Clinical Care

Doctors don’t work in vacuums—aging populations and an uptick in chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes require doctors to work with a team of treatment specialists. They work together to identify, solve, treat, communicate, and sometimes eradicate problems. Teamwork is critical to quality patient care. Physicians, nurses, assistants, and other health professionals must work together to deliver the best possible outcome to the patient. What does this mean? It means that med students need to practice teamwork in med school and learn from their successes and mistakes before they enter the field. When they enter the field, there’s less room for error. (See #2). Excellent teamwork will help ensure the success of all involved.

2. Reduction in Errors

Research on teamwork in medicine shows that teamwork reduces medical errors and increases patient safety. By working together, physicians, nurses, health specialists, and assistants give each other a system of checks-and-balances—and one of shared responsibility. Combining knowledge and experience results in fewer errors and a team of healthcare professionals dedicated to providing the best service possible.

3. Increased Confidence

Working together for a common cause increases medical student confidence. This past fall, first-year medical students at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker School of Medicine participated in a medical first responder capstone event that showed them the importance of teamwork—and the confidence that they can feel when working together. The day-long activity allowed students to practice responses to simulated real-world, high-stress, clinical emergencies.

In one scenario, the students had to rappel to get to their victims. Dr. Bill Fales, associate professor of emergency medicine and division director of EMS and disaster medicine said, “…we give them an opportunity to do rappelling not because everyone wants their doctor to be able to rappel, but because it can show confidence in working as a team in a system.”

4. Easier to Work

When you like the people with whom you work, you are a positive contributor to your workplace. In the case of medicine, being a positive contributor means helping people feel better, and in some cases saving their lives. When you have positive rapport with your team, you easily establish positive rapport with patients. When you establish positive rapport with your patients, you can communicate openly, honestly, and deliver the best care possible.

5. Easier to Learn

Learning as a team makes it easier to learn. More medical schools, like the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, are taking a cross-disciplinary approach to teamwork training. What does this mean? Medical students train with students from nursing, pharmacy, and other health specialists, in addition to learning about the business of medicine. Why is it easier to learn? It helps to know the perspectives that your colleagues—your fellow teammates—will bring to the table. When doctors train to work across disciplines, their learning is more holistic. While focus is good, getting the big picture, especially when it comes to medicine, is better.

For medicine, teamwork has never been more important. Think about it from a patient’s perspective. Knowing that you have a team of professionals working to help you is a lot more comforting than knowing that you have only one person helping you. And isn’t at least part of your purpose in becoming a physician to help people?

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