Question

1. Explain a surgical team as a kind of functional group. What features does it share with most functional groups? What features distinguish it from most functional groups?

2. Explain a surgical team in terms of its role structures. What factors might lead to role ambiguity? To role conflict? To role overload?

3. Explain a surgical team in terms of its behavioral norms. How might norm variation and norm conformity contribute to either effective or ineffective communications?

4. How do various strategies for improving surgical- team communications reflect a desire to achieve cohesiveness? Is increased cohesiveness always a desirable goal? Why or why not?

Answer 1

1) Ans:- Surgical team consists of people who perform surgery of a patient. Apart from surgon there are others who take part in assisting him like anesthesiologist, nurse, radiographer etc. A functional group is a group of people who come together to fulfill a common objective. So surgical team is like a functional team; nurse, anesthesiologist and radiographer is there to assist the doctor to reach a common objective for the well being of patient.

However life is at stake in a surgery and it is way more serious than serving the customer by functional group.

2) Ans:- The role structure should be clear and precise to every member. The head doctor should preside over situation. He should get assistance from nurse during surgery, anesthetic support from anesthesiologist and medical scanning support from radiologist.

Role ambiguity might arise when anesthsiologist would try to participate in surgical decision or nurse would try to do the doctor's job. Role overload occurs when one thinks that he knows more than other about the job.

3) Ans:- The behavioural factor plays a key role in successful surgery of patient. The surgical team should have excellent co-ordination and understanding in completing the surgery. There are certian medical norms that must be maintained in a surgery like maintaining absolute concentration during surgery, equipments should be placed at required place, anesthesiologist must take part to make the patients unconcious.

4) Ans:- A cohesiveness is very much important to achieve the desired result. The increased cohesiveness is always a desired goal up to a point it helps in increasin the desired result. The coheisveness shouldn't lead to encroaching upon other's territory of work.