I'm a Doctor. I Know What Actually Brings a Team Together. This Was It.

By Dr. Sara Gonzalez

Doctors have a problem - we barely know each other! Finding the time and space to build relationships with the people we otherwise only meet at the beginnings or ends of our shifts.  A quick handoff of a list of sick patients doesn’t leave much space for the type of conversation that leads to real relationship building.  When I suggested a food tour as a team-building outing, my boss was initially skeptical.  After my wife Pam talked to him about it he agreed to give it a try.  But I wondered, would they like it?  I knew the tour was good; as the co-founder I knew Pam had poured every ounce of her efforts into making this an experience that could be broadly enjoyed.  But would my team, a diverse group with many backgrounds and tastes, enjoy it?  

They loved it.  

From the first stop, the mood shifted.  We weren’t talking about charts or schedules or the next patient.  We were walking on cobblestone streets, trying food many of us had never heard of, laughing about it, and learning something real about the city where we spend a good chunk of our lives.  Some may say I’m biased, but Pam’s background as a former educator, a fourth-generation New Bedfordian, and someone who generally loves this place makes her the perfect guide to discovering the hidden gems of the city.  By the second stop my team wasn’t just engaged, they were asking questions I couldn’t answer myself. 

Here’s something worth knowing about our team: many of our physicians aren’t originally from the area.  They came for the work, they care deeply about their patients, but New Bedford as a place - its neighborhoods, its history its culture - wasn’t something they’d had much chance to explore.  This tour changed that.  Hearing the stories behind the food, understanding where and why the Cape Verdean and Portuguese communities came from their homes to New Bedford and what they built here, gave us a window into the lives of the people we treat every day.  They say that most diagnoses in medicine are made from history alone; that means connecting with people.  Understanding the context of our patients matters.  

We also asked Pam to customize the route in a small but meaningful way.  Many of our patients get their care at the New Bedford Community Health Center, an amazing community resource embedded right in the downtown of New Bedford.  Our patients talk about it all the time, we talk with the team there regularly, but most of us had never seen where it was!  So we walked by, laying eyes on the pharmacy next door we’d sent so many prescriptions to.  It was such a small moment, but you could watch colleagues connect the name they’d heard hundreds of times to an actual place, actual people entering and exiting the building where so much of their care before and after their time with us in the ER takes place.  It’s the kind of thing you can’t get from a map or an orientation powerpoint, a sense of place that goes beyond just “oh yeah, I’ve seen their website.”  

One of the things that really struck me was how naturally everyone opened up.  In medicine, hierarchy is real.  It can be a real barrier to getting to know the folks we work next to every day, and those lines don’t just disappear because you’re off the clock.  But somewhere between the cachupa and the pastel de nata, they did.  We were all just people, walking and eating and discovering something together.  I learned which of my colleagues take great photos (a few of my younger colleagues got some great Insta shots) and which were super competitive at air hockey. (All of them. These are doctors, after all.  They all worked really really hard to be where they are.  No surprises there.)  I learned that one of my colleagues I’ve known the longest has a passion for beer which had led him to hear about one of our stops; he’d never been but agreed that it was worth the hype as he sampled one of their brews.  That had never come up once at all those other team building exercises we’d done over the years.  

As a physician, I spend a lot of time thinking out our team dynamic; we are under a huge amount of pressure on a regular basis and rely on each other to keep our level of care at the highest standard.  That takes trust, communication, and a shared sense of purpose.  You can’t get that from a wellness powerpoint or a zoom call.  But three hours of walking through the city together, sharing plates, and learning which colleagues have never tried a Cape Verdean dish before?  It’s a shared experience that carries forward into the following weeks, months and years.  A colleague who commutes now stops at the bakery he never knew was a stone’s throw from the hospital.  We all left the tour with a sense of warmth, connection, and shared fun that filled our bellies, but more importantly fed our spirits.  We’re already talking about when we can take our next tour together.  I can’t wait to share another part of the city’s story with them, one bite at a time.