Interprofessional Perspectives on Teamwork in Health Care: A Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reexamine and challenge the literature's presentation of the concept. (For a typology of team, see Petrie 1976 and Schmitt 1981. In this study interprofessional and team are used interchangeably and refer to a phenomenon of practice that includes a physician and a nurse.) The study explores the assumption that a phenomenon of practice variously called an interprofessional or team exists, and is an easily identifiable, well-defined, and bounded unit. What is known is that there exists a certain arrangement between health professionals who practice together. This paper proposes that there is a discrepancy between nursing's and medicine's views and expectations of and that this has important consequences for the viability of the interdisciplinary model of practice as it is portrayed in the literature. (For a historical review of the