Interdisciplinary Team – is there a Form of Cooperation in Medical Rehabilitation?

The work is an attempt to highlight the problem related to too weak or even insufficient communication in a team integrating healthcare professionals and drawing attention to this very important aspect of caring for the patient without competing for the grandmaster’s laurel. The definition of the term Interdisciplinary Team in the medical context is very simple. It is a group of people, specialists in various fields of medicine, dealing with solving a specific problem using the resources at the disposal of each member of such a Team. Polish realities in many cases are far from this concept, which, unfortunately, may result in worse therapy outcomes. Although each of the members of this team may think that his contribution is the most important, it is only the sum of all activities that translates into success, the effect of which is regaining the health lost by the patient, and this success is achieved by not one person but a multi-person team. Currently, it is not possible to provide a patient with only one specialist with the full range of medical services guaranteeing success. Treatment is a complex process involving diagnosticians (imaging diagnostics, laboratory diagnostics), a doctor, physiotherapist, psychologist, dietitian, nurse and many other specialists without whom it is difficult to imagine any treatment activities. The group should be led by a leader, but information on the patient’s health should be available to each member of the therapeutic team, and decisions should be made on the basis of joint arrangements, so that none of the team members “pulls in their way” but contributes to mutual success, what a healthy patient is. The work raises problems such as the lack of reliability of information, points to the unfavourable phenomenon of “generalization” of disease entities and the frequent dissonance in the selection of appropriate therapeutic measures. The article indicates only a few situations that cause inconsistencies in the patient’s rehabilitation process. The rights and scope of the work of a physiotherapist on the basis of current legal documents were emphasized, the possibilities of extending the qualifications of physiotherapists were highlighted and the opportunities that would be granted to physiotherapists after obtaining additional qualifications were emphasized as well.