Too much of a good thing? Teamwork in medical education

Abstract

Teams and the promotion of teamwork for both faculty and for students can be key components of integrated curriculum and ‘flipped classroom’ active learning approaches for medical education. The benefits of teams and teamwork are presented to faculty and students, sometimes via indoctrination, but the costs of the team approach, balanced against the purported benefits, are typically not discussed. This unbalanced presentation creates the need for a statement of a contrarian view. I posit that among the problems of teams and teamwork in education are diminishment of individual initiative and individual responsibility, lowering standards to the least common denominator, creating excess obligations with respect toward weaker team members, negative effects on academic freedom, inconsistency with respect to how faculty and students are evaluated, and giving students a somewhat false view of their accountability as a medical professional. Possible ideological considerations and attitudes toward individualism with respect to teams need to be understood as well.

Keywords:

• Teams
• teamwork
• integrated curriculum
• individualism

Author contributions

The entire manuscript was produced by Michael Bordonaro.

Approval

This work is not based on a research project and is therefore exempt from approval by relevant bodies at the author’s institution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Michael Bordonaro

Michael Bordonaro, PhD, is associate professor of molecular biology in the Department of Medical Education. Dr. Bordonaro holds a PhD in the biological sciences from Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y. Additionally, Dr. Bordonaro completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Oncology at the Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y., where he received an American Institute for Cancer Research Postdoctoral Award for his work on the effects of dietary components on the development of colorectal cancer. Dr. Bordonaro later held the position of associate research scientist at the Yale University School of Medicine and has also served as a research coordinator for Keren Pharmaceutical.