Mountain Medical Centers Cardiac Surgery Teamwork Essay

organized writing that is supported by evidence (peer-reviewed literature). Citations/references must be written in APA format. The post should include an introduction, body, and conclusion

the implementation of approaches and strategies in group dynamics in dealing with a variety of cooperative/collaborative situations.

Mountain Medical’s Cardiac Surgery Team

The members of the Mountain Medical Center’s cardiac surgery team were excited, but also a bit nervous. They were about to use a new method of performing the most technically challenging of all surgeries: the repair of the heart. Only last week they had been using traditional, open-heart procedure that requires splitting the patient’s chest at the breastbone, stopping the heart and transferring its duties to a heart-lung bypass machine, clamping off the arteries and values as necessary, isolating and repairing the damaged portions of the heart, and then closing the 8-inch long wound in the chest. But they would not be using those methods today. Instead, the team would be carrying out a minimally invasive surgical procedure. The surgeon would make a small incision between the patient’s ribs and snake a high-tech instrument into the heart, guided by feedback from a network of computers, cameras, and ultrasound scanners.

These new procedures would make entirely new demands of the surgical team. Traditional surgical teammates work closely with one another, but they are not continually interdependent. Each has his or her specialty. The anesthesiologist sedates the patient and monitors his or her breathing. The perfusionist is the technician who operates the heart-lung machine. The surgeon makes the incision, splits the chest, repairs the heart, and then closes the incisions. The scrub nurse or technician prepares the sterile field, suctions blood from the site, and passes instruments to the surgeon as needed. The new procedure is not so modularized. The surgeon can no longer see the heart, but must rely on the computer-enhanced images provided by the perfusionist and anesthesiologist. Because the surgeon cannot apply clamps directly to the heart to stop the flow of blood, that work is done by the anesthesiologist, who threads a catheter into the aorta through the femoral vein. The scrub nurse monitors and maintains pressures and vital signs and attaches, when needed, forceps, scissors, scalpels, and other surgical tools to the surgeon’s operation mechanicals.

The new procedures require an unprecedented degree of teamwork, delivering surgical care involves several interdependent variables, many of which vary across hospitals, operating rooms or surgical cases and most of which are not normally under the control of the surgical team. Many of these factors affect surgical performance including the OR environment, teamwork and communication, technology and equipment, tasks and workload factors, and organizational variables”, But the Mountain Medical team was ready for the challenge. They had practiced for months to learn the new method, and their diligence showed in their level of coordination and communication in the operating room. The operation took somewhat longer than they had expected it would, but there were no surprises: Their first patient recovered fully, but also more quickly because of their use of the minimally invasive, and team-intensive, technique. (Healy, Under, & Vincent, 2006; Pisano, Bohmer, & Edmondson, 2001; Weigmann, Eggman, ElBardissi, Henrickson & Sundt. 2010.).

Please read the following and post/respond to the following questions.

Identify what aspects of the process that identifies these diverse professionals as a “team” as opposed to a “group”?

How would Levi classify this kind of team/group?

What contributed to their success?

What group dynamics factors could have interfered with their success?