| This dissertation seeks to contribute to the team cognition literature by investigating how team and situational characteristics may influence communication processes by observing a team "in the wild". In addition, this research increases the knowledge of how surgical teams communicate during Robot-Assisted Surgery (RAS).;The first part provides a theoretical and empirical background starting with a review of main team cognition theories, including frameworks based on team knowledge or team interaction . Then, empirical research is systematically reviewed resulting in an extensive categorization of team characteristics, and a synthesized summary of the known associations between team characteristics and the way teams communicate. A second systematic literature review provides a synthesized coding scheme for researching team communication in the Operating Room (OR) based on past research. Finally, the few studies that focused on team communication during RAS are summarized.;The second part describes the field study in which eleven robot-assisted radical prostatectomies were video recorded. The interaction events between the RAS team, colocated in the OR and composed of the surgeon and the two bedside assistants, were categorized by sender, receiver, topic, and type. Results showed that the RAS team combined both verbal and nonverbal modalities to interact, in which this nonverbal communication occurred both "face-to-face" and technologically mediated in a virtual shared environment. Communication strategies were influenced by the characteristics of the communication media available, the role of people involved, and what they were talking about, but not by familiarity level. |
