Introduction
The provision of medical services is now seriously tied to the communication problem since precisely this is the key to a correct and quick diagnosis and, as a result, receiving recommendations for recovery. Good communication between the patient, physicians, and other professionals serves the benefit of prevention and reduces the number of trips to the hospital. At the moment, medical professionals at all levels are confident that they must develop interprofessional collaboration competencies to provide better care to patients.
Personal Meaning of Considered Competencies
Interprofessional Collaboration Competencies are divided into four groups covering aspects of ethics, responsibilities, communication issues, and teamwork. These aspects play an essential role in treating challenging patients suffering from chronic diseases and having to turn to many specialists at once. For example, dermatitis patients should receive recommendations from a dermatologist, immunologist, allergist, and endocrinologist. Sometimes such diseases affect the self-esteem and psychological state of the patient. Then psychologists and psychotherapists are involved in the work. People who have epilepsy should receive advice from neurologists and cardiologists. Problematic cases in the diagnosis are sometimes due to vegetative-vascular dystonia in adolescents and young people. When diagnosing such diseases, an understanding team of professionals with well-established communication should be built around patients. Ethical competencies are the root of any doctor and serve as the foundation for motivation. Establishing work roles helps health workers to define their boundaries and skills clearly. The communicative aspect is tied to the problem of understanding between the people involved in the treatment (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). Teamwork facilitates, in many ways, the tasks assigned to doctors and helps to come to the truth together.
Interprofessional Collaboration in Practice
The information obtained about the interprofessional collaboration will help cope with complex and confusing diagnostic cases since it is possible to get detailed information from the patient through high communication skills. In these cases, it will be appropriate to seek support from specialists of other profiles and share responsibility with them. Through their examples, healthcare workers can show patients and their families the importance of taking care of their health and not neglecting preventive measures.
Daily Work: Analysis of Sub-competences
Ethics
Ethical competencies seem to be the hardest to incorporate into everyday work, as they have excessive abstract and philosophical existential connections. However, the most crucial sub-competence in this group is respect for patient privacy and confidentiality (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). In everyday work, this means that the health worker is obliged to maintain medical secrecy and provide all opportunities only for the patient to manage their personal medical information. Information technology is raising the issue of confidentiality of diagnosis and treatment data to a new level, and in the future, many doctors will face this. The second sub-competence is the management of ethical dilemmas. It is relevant for issues of surgery, transplantation, euthanasia, indistinguishable diseases, and many others. Usually, the ethical commission decides on the most challenging questions, but a doctor can face a dilemma every day. In such situations, doctors consult with colleagues and the patient’s family.
Roles and Responsibilities
Within the group of these competencies, the health worker must first recognize the limits of his skills and knowledge. Patients are often inclined, out of ignorance, to rely too much on the powers of physicians (RodrĂguez, 2015, 07:10-08:00). Doctors and nurses often hear accusations or hopes of recovery in hopeless cases. Another sub-competence is establishing interdependent relationships with other professions for improved patient care. In everyday work, this can be problematic, as the question arises of whether other professionals are interested in these relationships.
Interprofessional Communication
At the center of communicative competencies is the problem of understanding between specialists, not just between doctors and the patient. Many patients talk about their negative experience of prolonged diagnosis and incorrectly selected treatment since doctors of different specializations did not act together but as if they alone were providing help (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2015, 03:19-06:01). Among this group, the sub-competences of an understandable form of communication, active listening, and participation in discussion stand out. The first sub-competence concerns communication between the doctor and the patient or family. In daily work, it is necessary to show a lot of patience and understanding to the questions of patients and their families. If one of them misunderstands the recommendations, the whole treatment will lose meaning. The second sub-competence in everyday work will look great in the form of work meetings and debates.
Teamwork
Leadership skills and disagreement management are the most critical sub-competencies that need to be developed for everyday work. Leadership skill helps to take responsibility on time and support colleagues, especially if these colleagues have less experience (Interprofessional Education Collaborative, 2016). In daily work, a well-developed leadership skill makes a doctor or nurse an indispensable specialist to whom the authorities are ready to make concessions, which all colleagues appreciate. Disagreement management is rooted in conflict management and is essential in everyday work. Colleagues and sometimes even patients argue about what treatment should look like. It is vital to be able to listen (intertwined with communicative competencies) to interlocutors and argue a point of view.
Conclusion
Thus, modern medicine is impossible without developed interprofessional collaboration skills. Developing communication and other competencies seriously affects the understanding of patients and colleagues. The study of these competencies in the future will undoubtedly be applied by young doctors in practice, which will allow for a radical change in medical care towards flexibility, rapid adaptation, and a unique approach to patients. The medical system will become less rigid over time, and both doctors and patients will feel comfortable in it, fully trusting each other.
References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2015). Negative experiences that could have been improved with interprofessional collaborative practice [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel. (2011). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. Washington, D.C.: Interprofessional Education Collaborative.
Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: 2016 update. Washington, DC: Interprofessional Education Collaborative.
RodrĂguez, D. G. (2015). What is interprofessional collaborative practice? [Video]. YouTube. Web.