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Background reading material by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule for Year 1 Semester 2 PPSD Session on 25th April 2007
1.0 PRINCIPLES OF GROUP WORK
A group is several interdependent and interacting persons. Work is enjoined in groups that are united, cooperative, open and trusting. Group members must be similar, empathetic, supportive, and sharing. Separation from group is condemned. Group norms must be respected. Breaking norms, secretive behavior, concealment of information, and secret talks destroy groups. Group membership has benefits of integration, stimulation, motivation, innovation, emotional support, and endurance. Group performance is superior to individual performance. Group membership has the disadvantages of arrogance, suppression of individual initiative, member mismatch, and intra-group conflict. Group formation has 4 stages: forming (acquaintance and learning to accept one another), storming (emotions and tensions), initial integration (start of normal functioning), total integration (full functioning), and dissolution. Mature groups have group identity, optimized feedback, decision-making procedures, cohesion, flexibility of organization, resource utilization, communication, clear accepted goals, interdependence, participation, and acceptance of minority views. Groups fail when constituted on the wrong basis, when members cannot communicate, when there is no commonality (interests, attitudes, and goals), and when they have diseases of hasad, nifaq, namiimah, gaybah, kadhb, riyah, kibriyah, hubb al riyasa, tajassus, and dhun al soo. An effective group follows the Qur'an and sunnat, members feel secure and not suppressed, members understand and practice sincere group dynamics, members are competent and are committed to the group and the leadership.
2.0 ETIQUETTE of TEACHING & LEARNING in THE HEALTH CARE TEAM
The hospital health care team is complex and multi-disciplinary with complementary and inter-dependent roles. Members have dual functions of teaching and delivering health care. Most teaching is passive learning of attitudes, skills, and facts by observation. Teachers must be humble. They must make the learning process easy and interesting. Their actions, attitudes, and words can be emulated. They should have appropriate emotional expression, encourage student questions, repeat to ensure understanding, and not hide knowledge. The student should respect the teacher for the knowledge they have. They should listen quietly and respectfully, teach one another, ask questions to clarify, and take notes for understanding and retention. They should stay around in the hospital and with their teachers all the time to maximize learning.
3.0 ETIQUETTE of CARE DELIVERY in THE HEALTH CARE TEAM
Each member of the team carries personal responsibility with leaders carrying more responsibility. Leaders must be obeyed except in illegal acts, corruption, or oppression. Rafidah was good model of etiquette. She a kind, empathetic, a capable leader and organizer, clinically competent, and a trainer of others. Besides clinical activities, she was public health nurse and a social worker assisting all in need. The human touch is unfortunately being forgotten in modern medicine as the balance is increasingly tilted in favor of technology.
4.0 THE HEALTH CARE TEAM: GENERAL GROUP DYNAMICS
Basic duties of brotherhood and best of manners must be observed. Encouraged are positive behaviors (mutual love, empathethy, caring for one another; leniency, generosity, patience, modesty, a cheerful disposition, calling others by by their favorite names, recognizing the rights of the older members, and self control in anger. Discouraged are negative attributes (harshness in speech, rumor mongering, excessive praise, mutual jealousy, turning away from other for more than 3 days, and spying on the privacy of others).
5.0 THE HEALTH CARE TEAM: SPECIAL GROUP DYNAMICS
Gender-specific identity should be maintained in dress, walking, and speaking. Free mixing of the genders is forbidden but professional contact within the limits of necessity is allowed. Patients of the opposite are examined in the presence of a chaperone. The gaze should be lowered. Modest and covering must be observed. Display of adornments that enhance natural beauty must be minimized.