The medical profession has many models which have broad scope and function. One such model is ‘the hand-over’- the conveying of information on patients from the team leaving a shift on-call to one subsequently coming on-call. The importance of the concept of teams here is a critical one. While health professionals work in teams, they all have the same goals in mind, that of improving the health of their patients. They all work for the same team, that is, the hospital and the community at large it serves. This is one circumstance where ‘group-think’ has an overwhelming advantage.
The handover and what it entails is a potential twilight zone where things have the potential to go awry with far-reaching consequences.
Many studies have been done, many ways have been devised to increase the handover’s effectiveness and efficiency: supporting structures, their implementation, audit… And then there are the intangibles- covert factors: humility over hubris and what fosters the former; hoarding responsibility vs responsibly letting go and what milieu creates the latter; effective consensus vs the need to be right and what will maintain the former; timely revision vs rigidity.
During this tumultuous time, let us think of the ‘great handover’ for an even greater ‘shift’ , i.e. an ever-advancing way of being, and what that constitutes.
You don’t have to agree, just consider…
© 2020 IC Blackman