Takeaway
To build an exceptional care team: foster psychological safety, model humility, and solicit input from every person. Daily rituals of respect can sustain excellent patient care.
Lifelong Learning in Clinical Excellence | October 22, 2025 | 3 min read
By Kai Shea, MSW, LCSW, Johns Hopkins Medicine
Teamwork in healthcare is often spoken of in procedural terms—handoffs, interdisciplinary rounds, communication checklists. But the true power of a healthcare team lies in something deeper—the constant human connections that make complex care possible.
At its best, teamwork in healthcare is an act of humility. No single clinician can see the whole picture. Medicine has grown too intricate, and patients’ stories are too layered for any single professional to hold all the answers. Teamwork asks us to acknowledge our limits and trust others to fill the gaps. This requires psychological safety—the shared belief that everyone’s perspective matters. When a patient care tech speaks up about a subtle change in a patient’s condition or a social worker raises concern about the patient’s understanding of the situation, the system becomes safer for everyone.
I think back to our patient Mr. C. He was unhoused, combative, and confused. His mother relayed his story of how he had developed psychiatric illness as a young man and a subsequent addiction. She’d been forced to evict him from their home for her own safety. There were often days when he was verbally unkind and physically struck out at staff. Maintaining unconditional positive regard for him became a challenge. Mr. C stayed in the hospital for two months because no nursing facility was willing to admit him.
Eventually an interdisciplinary team conference was arranged to work together on a plan. The physician articulated the patient’s complex medical needs, the social worker told his story through the eyes of his mother, the psych consult team helped educate about the reasons for his aggression and how to work on de-escalating, and nursing contributed with their daily experience of things that seemed to trigger Mr. C’s aggression. A tentative plan was pulled together.
The morning arrived for Mr. C’s discharge to the group home. The team was ready. Communicating through multiple modalities, each member executed their part with expertise. Mr. C.’s doctor calmly spent time with him. The social worker stayed with his mom in a separate room, so that the mother’s presence didn’t trigger aggressive behavior. The nursing staff and psych consult team were present to help with medication and care.
He was lifted onto the stretcher, and from somewhere he grabbed a pair of sunglasses. He put them on and rolled out of the hospital calmly into the bright sunshine of the day. The team watched as the paramedics loaded his stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Nobody said a word until it drove away. Then there were hugs and acknowledgment of each other’s expertise and dedication. Mr. C was headed somewhere safe where he would get the care he needed.
That kind of coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It grows from daily rituals of respect—listening fully, thanking colleagues, being intentional about physical presence, and debriefing after difficult situations. It relies on senior members of the team who are willing to model vulnerability—who admit when they’re uncertain and invite others to weigh in. It also requires emotional attunement. Healthcare teams share not only knowledge but also grief, fatigue, and hope. When we acknowledge those shared emotions instead of suppressing them, we strengthen the invisible bonds that sustain us.
Teamwork is where humanism becomes operational. To care for patients with compassion, clinicians must care for one another with the same spirit. There are days when it all feels too heavy. When the messages won’t stop coming in or when the outcomes aren’t what we hoped for. But even then, a strong team sustains itself. A quiet laugh, a check in to ask, “Are you ok?”, a shared cup of coffee before rounds. These moments are what make healing possible. When we pause to help a colleague who is overwhelmed or take a deep breath after a tough conversation, we reinforce the values that drew us to medicine in the first place.
In the end, teamwork isn’t a strategy for efficiency—it’s a form of care. Every act of collaboration, every hand extended, reaffirms that we’re all in this together: clinicians, patients, and families bound by the shared work of healing.
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This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.