Group Behavior within St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Throughout our society there is defiantly a lot of categorizing of people. Rather it is in schools, friendships, sports, religious groups or within organizations everyone belongs to a group. “Being able to understand the dynamics of group behavior allows one to manage individuals and groups more effectively in a workplace.” (Losh, 2011) Throughout this paper will see how St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital came about and how teamwork and trust has kept this organization together. However we will also examine the problems within their group behaviors that could impact their group productivity and some recommendations to resolve these problems. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is one of the only hospitals in the world that is fully a not-for-profit organization. From the very beginning this organization was built on teamwork and trust. Without knowing the history of this organization and how it was created it would be hard to understand why teamwork and trust was and is so important. Danny Thomas was the founder of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 1962. (AboutUs, 2013) St. Jude’s was developed after keeping a promise during one of his prayers to the St. Jude Thaddeus. (AboutUs, 2013) At this time his life he was a young struggling actor just trying to make it big. He was big on religion and always prayed to the St. Jude Thaddeus during good times and bad times asking for help and guidance in his career and his personal life. During one of his last prayers before his career boosted off and his personal life became stable he prayed “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine”. (AboutUs, 2013) In 1955 it was time for Danny Thomas to make his promise to St. Jude Thaddeus and his lifelong dream to become realty. Mr. Thomas and several business men from Memphis, TN who had agreed to help support Danny’s dream of building not just a hospital but a research facility that would be devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children around the world met in Memphis, TN to discuss the plans. (AboutUs, 2013) With the help of his wife, family and friends they created a team and began to travel the United States to raise money enable to build the top research hospital. Danny and all his friends and family was able to raise enough money to make this dream come true and build the hospital and research facility in Memphis, TN. Now that everyone worked together as group they are now faced with how they are going to keep up with the daily and annual operations and still keep it a non-profit organization. Enable to solve this problem Danny, of Lebanese decent, turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic speaking heritage to help him out. He believed deeply that they all owed this hospital and research facility to America, as a thank you for the gifts of freedom that was given to their family many years ago. (AboutUs, 2013) Danny’s request struck an amazing 100 people in the Arab-American community that was interested and willing to help make St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital a reality. They all joined together and created a group called American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities. The ALSAC group would be solely responsible of raising funds for the support and operations of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. (AboutUs, 2013) The American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities works with many organizations around the world like Target, Chili’s Bar & Grill, and Build –A – Bear Workshop just to name a few. (Chili’s, 2006) The cost of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is primarily covered by public contributes rather it is going through one of these organizations or other fundraisers going on throughout the world. Over the last five years, 81 cents of every dollar received has supported the research and treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. (AboutUs, 2013) All of this would have not been possible without commitment and teamwork between all the different groups.
Thanks to the ALSAC group, 3200 employees, and over 1 million volunteers nationwide St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is the second largest health-care charity with an amazing $1.8 million daily operating cost that is fully paid for by fundraising and charity donations. (AboutUs, 2013) This research hospital has raised the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the doors have opened (AboutUs, 2013) Even though Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have passed away their three kids carry on their parent’s hard work and dedication, and remain the driving force in making sure their fathers dream continues to live on. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s mission follows right beside Danny Thomas’ vision “to advance cures, and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment”. (AboutUs, 2013) All of this would have never been possible without teamwork and trust being their main priority.
Now that the organization is up and running teamwork and trust is not only important behind the scenes it is also important between nurses, doctors, scientist, and different departments throughout the campus. With teamwork and trust they are able to treat and serve over 260 patients daily. Throughout the study on this organization I came across many problems that could be fixed that can help with the teamwork and trust within this organization which will allow the behavior between groups to be stronger. Some of the issues that I came across that could be impacting a groups productivity are role conflicts within groups, communication problems among group members, lack of cohesiveness in groups with diverse members, and excessive intergroup conflicts.
The first problem is role conflicts within groups. Role conflict occur when there are incompatible demands or when we find ourselves being pulled in various directions as we try to complete all the statuses that we hold. “Role conflict can be interrole (across different roles) or intraole (within the same role).” (Losh, 2011) Within any hospital like St. Jude Children’s Hospital there are too many people trying to complete the same task at hand. When treating children that are struggling with catastrophic dieses it is important for families to be aside a personal care taker versus going between all different nurses and doctors.
Away to help with this type of situation is provide each family a care taker and then it would be that care takers responsible to reach out to the LPN’s, RN’s and Doctors to get the information that the families need to know. This not only would benefit the families but also can be a benefit to the doctors and nurses. With families living on campus for sometimes months this would allow them to feel more at home and develop lots of trust not having to wait around for information. The caretaker could also take a lot of follow-up work off the LPN’s, RN’s and Doctors which can relieve them to be able to focus more on their job at hand versus following up on voicemails.
The second problem is communication problems among group members. When you are dealing with children that have been diagnosed with a catastrophic disease it is extremely important to keep all communication lines open not only between the different Doctors, Surgeons, and departments like lab and x-ray but also between patient and Doctor. A parent’s worst nightmare is for their child to be sick and have a lack of communication. Communication and trust is something that can help ease any parents mind during a devastating time in their life. After researching there is some lack of communication between group members. The times where the communication was lacking the most is during shift changes between the LPN’s and RN’s. Working with patients their health can change on minute by minute bases it is extremely important when going through a shift change to make sure the new LPN’s and RN’s can immediately step in and take your place.
In able to ensure that all information is being provided to not only the next licensed nurse but also the Doctors and Surgeons that are on call everyone should complete each patients chart in detail. Another quick fix could be a quick huddle to share and go over all patient information. Sometimes two heads are better than one especially if you are in a crisis or an unsure situation. Every person has a different amount of knowledge and may have studied is different medical fields that can help one another in preventing a major crisis. “The kind of communication pattern that is used can affect group decision making, problem solving, and satisfaction as well as member influence.” (Losh, 2011) The third problem is lack of cohesiveness in groups with diverse members. Cohesion is very important when working within a group. However in an organization that works with doctors and scientist all around developing cures for catastrophic diseases in children there will always be a mix of diverse members. There is a lack of cohesiveness within many groups when it comes to working with diverse members. Being able to work with many different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds it can be hard to grow a bond that will link one another together and allow communication to follow easier. When evolving different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds it is important to allow people to show their diverse knowledge, perspectives, and beliefs, rather than trying to suppressing or ignoring them. By being able to express themselves this allows group members to come to know and understand the different perspectives with the group and the group will be able to integrate these diverse perspectives into their everyday task and solutions. “A company has the potential to thrive on the diversity of its employees, who bring a wealth of personal, educational and employment experiences to it.” (Losh, 2011) The fourth problem that has developed is excessive intergroup conflict. Intergroup relations between more than one department and their respective members are necessary in able to complete the work that is required to operate St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. With the majority of all patients it is necessary for groups to inter-relate to accomplish the organizations goals and objectives of curing patients. When more than one department is involved then conflict can occur. A major conflict that happened a lot is when doctors need lab work back on a patient’s blood before they can move forward with treatment. The lab department is one of the busiest groups throughout the hospital due to the majority of all test begin with or are followed up with blood work. With lab work being a necessity and it is important that all blood work is run correctly and accurately it is very important that no short cuts are taken. The lab could create an urgency scale on rather blood work is urgent or is just a routine check-up. The Doctors, RN’s, LPN’s and Lab associates needs to ensure that all lab requests are being completed by the urgency scale. Meaning if a large batch of lab work is received all urgent labs are ran first before routine check-up lab work. This will allow Doctors to proceed with the correct treatment in a timely manner. To insure that all departments including Doctors, Surgeons, Scientist, RN’s and LPN’s are providing the utmost productivity within their group St. Jude Children Hospital should provide company-wide training programs that can keep them up to date with all changes within the medical fields and within innovation of new technology. With an organization this size and working solely from charities and donations the best type of training to provide best practices would be through online course or seminars so all employees can be involved even if they are unable to attend a seminar or conference to learn hands on. The three rules to training are train, coach, and reinforce. It is essential that not only to train associates but reinforce what is taught by testing within different parts of the medical field. Throughout this paper we were able to fully see how St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was developed with teamwork and trust between family, friends, and society. Even with an organization this size there are still problems that can develop. This paper talked about the four issues that St. Jude’s has experienced and how these four issues could impact a group’s behavior. Throughout a hospital when one group falls behind then many groups can fall behind which then can create major crisis for patients and families. It is important to always put training and your job first so you can provide the upmost help to all patients and families during these rough times.

Reference

About Us. (2013). Retrieved from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital website: http://www.stjude.org/about Chili's annual 'create A pepper' for St. Jude children's research hospital(R) goes customizable in September with new T-shirts and gift cards. (2006, Aug 28). PR Newswire. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/451121464?accountid=32521 Losh, S. (2011). Group behavior in organizations. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.