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Notions of Teams and Team Talk in Health Care: Implications for Responsibilities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2021
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The use of the phrase “health care team” raises a number of philosophical questions — the fundamental one being whether it is appropriate to apply the word “team” to groups of health care professionals. This column will argue that answering that first question affirmatively will raise other ethical issues. For example, team rhetoric, drawn upon metaphors of athletic teams, is deceptive in the context of health care and can lead to incorrect concepts of the ethical responsibilities of the health care team and its members. Specifically discussed here will be the normative conflict between an individual’s loyalty to the health care team and that person's responsibility to “blow the whistle” on team members who have acted improperly.
One way to answer these questions is to use a general definition of “team” to determine whether there are any “teams” in health care based on that definition. Alternatively, one could look at several uses of the term outside the context of health care, and then see whether the health care situation is sufficiently analogous to these uses to justify the use of the term.
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- Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1981
References
These ideas have grown out of work for and in a summer seminar co-taught with Dr.Speer, James B. Jr., to teachers of health care delivery under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities (grant #FP-00033-79-1380). I feel a debt of gratitude to everyone involved in the seminar, but most especially to Mr.Sepulveda, Henry Jr., Research Assistant. 1 have also profited from discussions with Engelhardt, H.T. Jr., Ph.D., M.D.Google Scholar
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