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A study of staff nurses in England showed that nurses who scored higher in teamwork also seemed to be more autonomous and more involved in decision-making."You really have to be even more grounded and mature in your profession to be the best team member," Newton said.

Because of their training in assessment, communication and time management, nurses often make the best team coordinators, Tsukuda said. They also should take the lead in situations where they may have the best idea what the patient needs, such as education or sufficient support at home.

Managers also must give the concept of teamwork more than lip service by supporting teams, making sure they have time and space to meet and giving them enough resources, say those who work with health care teams.

Nurses on teams should be open to learning from others as well as teaching them. Botwinski said she has learned from a physical therapist about how to tell whether patients can support their own weight. Nowosielska said she was amazed to discover how much patient education pharmacists did, and now calls them regularly.

In the Louisville study, medical residents and nurse practitioner students discovered that areas of overlap in their professions created a common ground for discussing patient issues, and came to appreciate the things they had in common as well as the things they did differently, Roberts said.

They also had to learn how to include the social work students, who sometimes felt left out when team conversations became too clinical.

Respecting and trusting fellow team members and getting them to respect and trust you is probably the most important aspect of teamwork, say those who work with or on teams.

"I don't think you can have a real team environment without respect," Way said. In her department, she said, nurses feel like the physicians listen to them, even if they don't always agree. "We like the doctors we work with, and the respect is there both ways. We're a tight group. You work together in these real intense, awful situations and you bond."

They bond when a child dies and they have to tell the family. They bond to work on a patient minutes from death. They bond on codes, when a physician asks if anyone else has any other ideas before stopping treatment.

"They're working hard together to save someone's life," Way said. "They couldn't do that job without everybody working together."

Contact Cathryn Domrose at kaguilar@well.com