Medical care is routinely delivered by a team of healthcare professionals working together. When researchers analyze the chain of events that ended up harming a patient, they find that often someone knew that something was wrong, but didn’t have the courage to speak up; or they spoke up but weren’t heard. While nurses and doctors are usually well trained in the technical aspects of their individual jobs, they typically receive no training in how to work together, even though they have to do this all the time.
This can cause communication to break down, especially when senior surgeons act as “prima donnas” and throw temper tantrums, resulting in a dysfunctional atmosphere of fear, where juniors are too scared to open their mouth, even when they see mistakes being made under their nose. These “authority gradients” mar communication. This is why medical staff should use a structured…
