Multi-professional healthcare and training in the workplace team

This case study intended to research “to what extent the meetings of a multi-professional healthcare team have training potential for the different professionals that take part in them” (1).I intended to characterise and analyse the dynamics of the functioning of the multi-professional team meetings, the relations established between the different members that take part in these meetings and the implications as regards the ongoing training process of the professionals.The data was gathered in a Medical service of a Lisbon Hospital through participant observation of the meetings of the multi-professional team. The data was processed through analysis of the content.The conclusions drawn are that the multi-professional team meetings have excellent training potential, given that they encompass rich debate and individual reflection that, provided these are taken on board, lead to changes in behaviour. This training potential results from processes of experiential training, self-training and socialisation that occur in the meetings. Non-formal and informal training in the workplace are also important in the evolution of the professional practice in articulation with formal training.