ABSTRACT
Healthy clinical team members work in the best interests of the team rather than for the status of a few individual doctors. Effective clinical meetings have planned agendas and result in clear outcomes as meeting discussions encourage participation of the whole multidisciplinary team. Dysfunctional clinical teams may be dominated by egotistical individuals, where there is a lack of collaboration, trust and listening between members. As a result, these teams are often overworked and demotivated, creating a toxic work environment and poorer outcomes for patients. Healthy clinical teams centre around strong collaborative leadership, honest communication and have an overarching goal to provide excellence in patient care, while caring for colleagues. The doctor-patient relationship often takes centre stage, but the epitome of good clinical practice depends on how the doctors treat each other. The medical profession is filled with fragile and vulnerable egos that often have trouble working with each other in a genuine collaboration of trust and mutual respect.
