Problem
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. 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 sit, 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. 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, 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, Undre, & Vincent, 2006; Pisano, Bohmer, & Edmondson, 2001).
Respond to the following question:
• What makes these people a team as opposed to a "group"?