On the first day of the team announcement seminar in November, you could feel the excitement flow from all the fellows. It was almost like waiting for Christmas Eve. At this point in the program, we were well into the clinical immersion and had gotten to know each other. My general feeling was that it didn’t really matter who you were placed in a team with, because all teams would be great. Nonetheless, as the time came near for the team announcement, I just really wanted to know.
Foto: The picture on the right shows the Aarhus fellows visiting the pediatric department at Aalborg University Hospital for the first time.
Teambuilding kicked us off
The teams were announced at a seminar, which also provided the framework for getting to know your teammates and how you collaborate. I was pleasantly surprised by how the teambuilding activities made it clear to us how we worked as a team and which pitfalls we should look out for.
Following the teambuilding activities, our first job was to fill out our team mission. This forced us to quickly discuss up front what we saw as the strengths and weaknesses of our new team. It also made the foundation for creating a safe space to discuss insecurities and doubts. At the end of the team announcement seminar, we were filled up with positive energy and knowledge about what we would expect going forward in the program as teams, and we were eager to get started.
New week, new demands.
My team counts three team members, all with different backgrounds. I’m a biomedical engineer myself, Thorkild is a medical doctor and Christoffer is a physiotherapist and a health tech consultant. Naturally we have different ways of thinking, which I see as a big strength. However, being a team member also means being well aligned with your teammates, figuring out how to share knowledge and observations between each other and last but not least how to settle on the needs you want to bring forward into the creative skills phase.
Not left to our own devices
Throughout the program there are scheduled mentor sessions for each team and mid-December was our first session. The team mentor is mainly there to guide us through the ups and downs. For our first session we talked about why we were put in a team together, and it made a lot of sense going over what we had in common and where we would complement each other. Getting personal feedback on that level can be daunting, but it is definitely a great opportunity to help you get to know yourself better both individually and in the team constellation.
It is not all fun and games, or is it?
In a couple of days, the Christmas holidays are upon us, and we as a team have met our first major deadline of handing in our need specification documents. It has been hard, but great teamwork does make the work more fun. I’m definitely looking forward to learning more and to enter the creative skills phase with my team. I’m sure it is going to be both interesting and a lot of fun.