Case Study: Leadership
(Case developed by Nancy L. Wilson, L.M.S.W.)
The geriatric interdisciplinary team of GERICARE has recently assumed
responsibility for the care of a seventy-year-old man, Mr. K, and his
sixty-eight–year–old wife of fifty years, Mrs. K. The geriatric nurse practitioner and social
worker have interacted most with Mrs. K. After much deliberation over several
months, Mrs. K has entered the hospital to undergo a double hip replacement.
She is very anxious about her prognosis but is motivated to regain her mobility
to travel with her husband who has recently retired. The day of his wife’s surgery, Mr. K suffers a brain stem cardiovascular accident at the hospital,
and he is admitted to the intensive care unit. Mrs. K holds her husband’s durable power of attorney for health care and is in recovery from her own
surgery. The physician on the geriatric team, (Mr. K’s primary care physician) is contacted with the request that the neurology
resident on call be paged as soon as Mrs. K is alert enough to communicate so that
the resident can confer with Mrs. K.
The question to consider in thinking about this case study is: What roles
could team leadership play in this scenario? In the case of Mr. and Mrs. K, the
presence or absence of leadership within GERICARE will determine several
important outcomes for the care of both Mr. and Mrs. K. For example, does GERICARE
have rules for how to ensure the appropriate team members are involved in care
decisions? The physician contacted is not the team member with the greatest
understanding of Mr. and Mrs. K.
What roles could team leadership play in this scenario?
