Collaborations in a Medical Team Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Collaborations in a Medical Team - Essay Example The patient is the principal figure in this procedure and there are various steps to be followed in the recovery of the patient which must be to the satisfaction of the patient’s needs (Gorske and Smith, 2009).This essay gives an account of the primary and the secondary care of patients with mental illness. It outlines the various roles of doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and the patient as members of the primary and secondary team and how various government trusts assist in the provision of health and social services for the treatment of a person with mental illness. This essay analyzes how collaborations in a medical team involving the treatment, and care of a person with mental illness is possible through relationship building and care planning. The paper outlines the practices and procedures of mental nursing in relation to service user partnerships. It analyzes the relationships that exist between mental patients, nurses and whether the mentioned relationshi p is a partnership. On most occasions the relationship between the medical teams involved and the patients is full of tension. Partnership is as a process where two or more individual, or bodies come together to jointly work for the benefit of one another.Heller et al, (1996), observe that the relationship between medical practioners and a patient is an example of a partnership (p.32). The aspect of user partnership means the provision of care services by the patient in collaboration with the medical staff, and the main aim is to achieve a common goal which is recovery of the patient. In a mental institution, user partnership takes an example of a collaboration of a nurse with a person with mental illness. It also involves the collaboration of the medical team in providing care services to the patient which can be primary or secondary care. Acheson (1999) observes that primary health care is the first contact of a mental patient with treatment of his/her condition since it brings ca re to the locality of the patient minimizing expenses involving hospital care (p.28). Primary care increases the recovery of the mental patient and reduces the chances of separating the patient from his family due to involuntary admission to mental hospitals. The care leads to better utilization of the available human resource facilities and reduction of stigma associated with terminal illness. Provision of primary health care in England is through public and private sector, and the following are the teams involved in the provision of such services. Doctors, health visitors, support staff, nurses/assistant practitioners, psychologists, counselors and social workers. The roles of these people are different but related. For instance the roles of the doctor is to diagnose the nature of the mental illness, however, he can’t perform this duty effectively without the assistance of a nurse. The role of the medical doctors is to perform diagnosis, while the duty of nurses and social workers is to make follow ups. From this analysis, doctors and nurses require each other’s services for effective care in the primary health care system. Psychologists and counselors play an important role in the care of a terminally ill person, and a counselor has a duty to build the confidence of the patient which is low due to stigma. These people cannot effectively utilize their services without the help of social workers and the support staff (Acheson, 1999). They assist a patient in understanding their mental condition and the help in offer. The patient is a member of the primary health team, and he has the responsibility of cooperating with the medical team for his/her recovery.