The final set of questions explored current patient management and the specialists' role: understanding the treatment pathway and patient's journey from diagnosis to treatment point, assessing current satisfaction with existing treatment choices and identifying pertinent unmet needs.
A finding of particular interest to the design of future training, is that both student groups expressed lack of knowledge about each other's roles and responsibilities which, in many cases, led to uncertainty and behavior rooted in established hierarchical role understanding.
Whilst the tide is changing, there is still a significant performance gap; the implementation of change into healthcare practice faces challenges of information dissemination, unit culture, perceived role understanding, authority hierarchy and variation between multiple autonomous practitioners.
Using a multiple case study research design, we sought to explore and evaluate co-teaching practices with regard to role understanding, responsibilities in classroom management and the relationship of co-teachers and parents.
Interaction patterns or role understanding for both doctors and patients differed in the informants' eyes from expectations and may lead to insecurities.
Often there was no real framework for negotiating or planning care, and role understanding including responsibility for case management and leadership remained ill-defined.
