Team dynamics in emergency surgery teams: results from a first international survey
Lorenzo Cobianchi, Francesca Dal Mas, Maurizio Massaro, Paola Fugazzola, Federico Coccolini, Yoram Kluger, Ari Leppäniemi, Ernest E. Moore, Massimo Sartelli, Peter Angelos, Fausto Catena, Luca Ansaloni, the Team Dynamics Study Group, Abubaker Abdelmalik, Nebyou Seyoum Abebe, Fikri M. Abu‐Zidan, Yousif Abdallah Yousif Adam, Harissou Adamou, Antonino Agrusa, Emrah Akın, Henrique Alexandrino, Syed Muhammad Ali, Pedro Miguel Almeida, Francesco Amico, Michele Ammendola, Jacopo Andreuccetti, Daniel Aparicio-Sánchez, Antonella Ardito, Giulio Argenio, Ingolf Askevold, Boyko Atanasov, Goran Augustin, Selmy Awad, Carlo Bagnoli, Lovenish Bains, Dimitrios Balalis, Edoardo Baldini, Oussama Baraket, Mirko Barone, Jorge Arturo Barreras, Giovanni Bellanova, Helena Biancuzzi, Mark Brian Bignell, Roberto Bini, Daniele Bissacco, Paoll Boati, Andrea Bottari, Konstantinos Bouliaris, Antonio Brillantino, Luis Antonio Buonomo, Salvatore Buscemi, Valentin Calu, Riccardo Campo Dall′Orto, João Miguel Carvas, Gianmaria Casoni Pattacini, Valerio Celentano, Marco Ceresoli, Mircea Chirica, Pasquale Cianci, Nicola Cillara, Stefania Cimbanassi, Stefano Piero Bernardo Cioffi, Elif Çolak, Luigi Conti, Silvia Dantas Costa, Fabrizio D’Acapito, Dimitrios Damaskos, Koray Daş, Richard Justin Davies, Andrew Charles de Beaux, Belinda De Simone, Zaza Demetrashvili, Andreas K. Demetriades, Stefano Denicolai, Giuseppe Di Buono, Isidoro Di Carlo, Salomone Di Saverio, Bogdan Diaconescu, Rigers Dibra, Sandra Dios‐Barbeito, Agron Dogjani, Maurizio Domanin, Mario D’Oria, Virginia Duran Munoz-Cruzado, Barbora East, Gerald Ekwen, Adel Elbaih, Juan Pablo Escalera-Antezana, Giuseppe Esposito, Roser Farré, Antonjacopo Ferrario di Tor Vajana, Vinicius Cordeiro Fonseca, Francesco Forfori, Laura Fortuna, Εvangelos C. Fradelos, Gustavo Pereira Fraga, Pietro Fransvea, Mahir Gachabayov, Alain García Vázquez, Wagih Ghannam
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Emergency surgery represents a unique context. Trauma teams are often multidisciplinary and need to operate under extreme stress and time constraints, sometimes with no awareness of the trauma's causes or the patient's personal and clinical information. In this perspective, the dynamics of how trauma teams function is fundamental to ensuring the best performance and outcomes. METHODS: An online survey was conducted among the World Society of Emergency Surgery members in early 2021. 402 fully filled questionnaires on the topics of knowledge translation dynamics and tools, non-technical skills, and difficulties in teamwork were collected. Data were analyzed using the software R, and reported following the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES). RESULTS: Findings highlight how several surgeons are still unsure about the meaning and potential of knowledge translation and its mechanisms. Tools like training, clinical guidelines, and non-technical skills are recognized and used in clinical practice. Others, like patients' and stakeholders' engagement, are hardly implemented, despite their increasing importance in the modern healthcare scenario. Several difficulties in working as a team are described, including the lack of time, communication, training, trust, and ego. DISCUSSION: Scientific societies should take the lead in offering training and support about the abovementioned topics. Dedicated educational initiatives, practical cases and experiences, workshops and symposia may allow mitigating the difficulties highlighted by the survey's participants, boosting the performance of emergency teams. Additional investigation of the survey results and its characteristics may lead to more further specific suggestions and potential solutions.