Learning About Resilience from Rural Interprofessional Healthcare Teams: Insights from the “First Wave” of COVID-19

Building resilience is a key concern for adult educators today as we face unprecedented global challenges such as the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Nowhere is this more apparent than in educational initiatives with health professionals who experience many stressors in their work, now amplified by the pandemic. This paper reports the results of focus groups with three interprofessional primary healthcare teams in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, in the fall of 2021. The aim was to learn about their lived experience during the first year of the pandemic, as a basis for considering how resilience could be nurtured and supported in rural team-based collaborative practices settings. Findings reveal that, while each collaborative team experienced recognized COVID-19 workplace stressors, they leveraged a store of collective resilience to navigate the pandemic. The trust, sense of purpose, and shared problem-solving skills they derived from working in collaborative structures over time enabled them to regain equilibrium and to adapt to new norms, and to transform thier practices. The study highlights the power of collaborative learning to strengthen overall ability for resilient performance, and the adaptive capacity that is required to deliver and sustain quality healthcare. The study highlights the need for continuing professional education that values naturally occurring practice-based learning. Adult educators are well positioned to support health professionals and health systems to nurture and support resilient action. They bring an understanding of effective collaborative tools and processes that foster dialogue and collective awareness that leads to a shared identity and understanding. As this study reveals, it is this shared identity and capacity arising within a group that enables them to draw on their collective sources of support to deal with adversity.