Sonographers face many challenges in their day-to-day practice including excessive patient workloads, the pressures of on-call roster, a lack of agency and autonomy to direct patient workflow, a lack of consistency of processes across practices with multiple sites, hierarchal structures, and a lack of protected time for professional development. Working in a sonography team can magnify these challenges and pressures. When these challenges and pressures take over a team, collaboration in the team diminishes and can result in impacts on patients; (reduction in patient care and empathy extended to patients); impact on the accuracy of ultrasound scans and associated reports; impacts on the individual sonographer (decreased physical and mental well-being, decreased resilience, increased absences) and impacts on the team overall (fractured, negative and inappropriate communication).
Sonographers can protect against these potential negative influences in the workplace by increasing their own self-awareness of their strengths and in turn, increasing their capacity to identify, acknowledge and value the strengths of other team members. This session will introduce the concept of Values in Action (VIA) strengths, how to recognise your own values, recognise the values and strengths of colleagues and how optimising the strengths of individuals within a team can optimise the strength and wellbeing of the overall team. By increasing engagement in the workplace, professional relationships can become more authentic, providing purpose and meaning in the workplace, promoting effective communication amongst colleagues and thus fostering collaboration.