Social Work in Health Care

A Handbook for Practice

Kay Davidson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317823964
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Here is an outstanding reference book of major readings in the field of social work in health care. Practitioners, educators, researchers, and students can use this landmark two-part volume to review dominant themes and critical issues in today's practice environment and to understand the evolution of current trends and emerging policies and programs. In this one desktop source book, hundreds of references relevant to the health care social work field are immediately accessible. Education, policy, practice, and research issues integral to social work's expanding role in health care are the main focus, with each chapter highlighting a theme of enduring importance to the field. Other outstanding articles related to the chapter's theme are cited in the appendix to each chapter which also includes a selected bibliography of suggested topical readings.

Comprehensive new book filled with information vital to social workers in the health care field!

• Over 900 pages of scholarly articles by the foremost social work leaders in health care!
• 9 categories embrace the range of social work activity in the health care field!
• Exciting new ideas and practical suggestions for everyday dilemmas!
• Hundreds of references immediately accessible in one desktop source!
• Selected bibliography of topical headings provides sources for even more relevant articles!
• A MUST HAVE volume for instructors and students! Deepen your understanding of all aspects of social work practice in health care with this superb volume! Here is an outstanding reference book of major readings in the field of social work in health care. Practitioners, educators, researchers, and students can use this landmark two-part volume to review dominant themes and critical issues in today's practice environment and to understand the evolution of current trends and emerging policies and programs. Social Work in Health Care makes hundreds of references relevant to the health care social work field immediately accessible in this one desktop source book. Education, policy, practice, and research issues integral to social work's expanding role in health care are the main focus, with each chapter highlighting a theme of enduring importance to the field. Other outstanding articles related to the chapter's theme are cited in the appendix to each chapter which also includes a selected bibliography of suggested topical readings. Find answers and ideas for everyday dilemmas in this all-inclusive, information-packed volume!Social workers practicing in the rapidly expanding health care field call upon a repertoire of skills to fulfill a variety of functions including direct patient care and contact with patients'families, education, and influencing organizational policies on their clients'behalf. The in-depth scholarship and the diversity of multiple approaches to health care social work, as presented in Social Work in Health Care, will have a strong impact on the field. Through the intertwining network of education, policy, practice, and research issues in the book, and professsional discussion of those topics, a beginning point exists from which social workers can develop principles to guide their social work activities in the medical and health fields.

Contents

PART I

Preface

Kay W. Davidson

Sylvia S. Clarke

PART 1: HEALTH CARE SOCIAL WORK: HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

Introduction

Social Work in Health Settings: A Historical Review

Martin Nacman, DSW

The Role of Social Workers in Medical Education: A Historical Perspective

Mildred M. Reynolds, LCSW

Hyman J. Weiner’s Use of Systems and Population Approaches: Their Relevance to Social Work Practice in Health Care Today

Sylvia S. Clarke, MSW, ACSW

An Ecological Perspective on Social Work Practice in Health Care

Carel B. Germain, DSW

Social Work in Health Settings

Hans S. Falck, PhD

Commentary

Additional Readings

PART 2: WORKING WITH PATIENTS AND FAMILIES

Introduction

Psychosocial Responses to Traumatic Physical Disability

Barbara A. Lilliston, MSW, CSW

The Impact of Severe Illness on the Individual and Family: An Overview

Mildred Mailick, DSW

The Social Nature of Chronic Disease and Disability

Neil F. Bracht, MA, MPH, ACSW

Families, Transitions, and Health: Another Look

Carolyn Dillon, MSW, LICSW

Social Work in Home Dialysis: Responding to Trends in Health Care

Sally E. Palmer, MSW

The Anatomy of Discharge Planning

Grace Fields, MSW, ACSW

Evolving Social Work Roles in Health Care: The Case of Discharge Planning

Kay Wallis Davidson, MS, CSW

Commentary

PART 3: RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

Introduction

Social Work Services as a Component of Palliative Care with Terminal Cancer Patients

Helen Allison, RN, MSW

James Gripton, DSW

Margaret Rodway, PhD

Family Coping with the Crisis of Heart Attack

Surjit Singh Dhooper, MSW, PhD

Evaluation of Social Work Practice in Health Care Settings

K. Jean Peterson, DSW

Sandra C. Anderson, PhD

Commentary

Additional Readings

PART 4: WORKING WITH COLLEAGUES

Introduction

The Interprofessional Team as a Small Group

Rosalie A. Kane, DSW

A Multimodel Approach to Collaborative Practice in Health Settings

Mildred D. Mailick, MSW, ACSW

Pearl Jordon, MSW, ACSW

Diagnosing the Hospital Team

Frances Nason, MSW, LICSW

The Impact of Illness on Patients and Families: Social Workers Teach Medical Students

Susan Hunsdon, MSW, ACSW

Sylvia S. Clarke, MSW, ACSW

A Gerontology Internship Program for Medical Students

Alice Ullmann, MS

Hirsch S. Ruchlin, PhD

Commentary

Additional Readings

PART 5: DEVELOPING PROGRAMS AND DELIVERING SERVICES

Introduction

A Systems Approach to the Provision of Social Work Services in Health Settings

Martin Nacman, DSW

A Preventive Program for Bereaved Families

Kristine S. Stubblefield, MSW, CSW

The Short-Term Treatment of Depression of Physically Ill Hospital Patients

Mildred D. Mailick, DSW

Terminal Cancer: A Challenge for Social Work

Carleton Pilsecker, MSSW, ACSW

The Case of Ann: A Sleep Disturbance in a 3-Year-Old Child

Emily Hancock, MSW

Family Treatment in the Health Setting: The Need for Innovation

Beth Kemler, PhD, LICSW

Social Work Groups in Health Settings: Promises and Problems

Helen Northen, PhD

The Legacy of the Group: A Study of Group Therapy with a Transient Membership

Susan S. Bailis, ACSW

Susan R. Lambert, ACSW

Stephen B. Bernstein, MD

Rehabilitation After Mastectomy: The Group Process

Sona Euster, MSSA, ACSW

Commentary

Additional Readings

Preface

This book of readings celebrates social work practice in health care settings. Its preparation marks the first decade of publication of Social Work in Health Care, the first independently published journal devoted exclusively to this specialized area of practice. A reference book of outstanding articles from the first ten years of publication provides an appropriate celebration and a tangible milestone. In the time it took to fashion this book, the decade became eleven years. This volume contains, therefore, what its editors see as outstanding articles published in the first eleven volumes of Social Work in Health Care, beginning with Volume 1, 1974-75, through Volume 11, 1985-86.

We see this as an educational book. The articles are grouped so that practitioners, educators, researchers, and students can readily review dominant themes and critical issues that shape today’s practice environments. Students and beginning practitioners will find here illustrative readings that analyze theory, research, and practice of the recent past. The evolution of current trends and emerging policies and programs is also evident.

The editors assume the role of guides, sharing their own wisdom and viewpoints in their commentaries and introductions. Each chapter pursues a theme of enduring importance to the field. Articles were selected to develop and illustrate each theme and provide a deepened understanding of that aspect of professional practice. The selected bibliography of references and additional readings from this journal and other sources enriches the educational and historic perspective.

The themes of Social Work in Health Care: A Handbook for Practice are major strands in the intertwined network of educational, policy, practice, and research issues integral to social work’s expanding role in health care. The frequency with which articles on particularly critical topics have been included in the journal comments on the characteristics of health care practice in the past decade. The editors selected those articles that represent a high level of scholarship along with creative diversity of multiple approaches to health care social work practice. The first eleven volumes of Social Work in Health Care contain many more outstanding works than could have been included in this compendium.

Five years before the journal began, Bess Dana (1969) wrote on the significance of “interprofessional interdependence.” With such an approach the journal has published articles written by or in collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines, including cross-professional responses to published articles. This aspect of the journal and of this time period is recaptured in Social Work in Health Care: A Handbook for Practice which includes several articles coauthored by colleagues in health professions other than social work.

Social work authors tend to conceptualize their work in relation to special populations of patients, their particular service needs, optimal intervention strategies, and the special sites where services are provided. The prevalence of articles focused on programs fashioned in response to the specific needs of special populations reflects the trend toward specialization always present in this field of practice but seemingly more apparent in the recent past. It raises the longtime issue of what is generic and what is specialty practice, which has always presented dilemmas for social work education. These articles show the health care social worker continuing to learn a core of transferable knowledge and skills for practice in an ever-changing field. Principles articulated for one population are quite widely transferable to many other populations and contexts. We hope to stimulate this process with these readings.

Kay W. Davidson
Sylvia S. Clarke

Reference

Dana, Bess. “A Proposed Learning-Teaching Model for Undergraduate Medical Education in Comprehensive Patient Care Management,” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 47:4, October 1969, Part I, pp. 357-409.

Part 1
Health Care Social Work: History and Contemporary Issues

Introduction

Major social and organizational influences have had marked impact on health care social work practice during the period of this journal’s publication: the expansion of health care as an industry; the sustained professional dominance of physicians; the growth of new health professions; the competition for patient care functions among professionals; the rapid advances in medical technology; and the dramatic development of cost-control mechanisms and accountability systems. The impact of these forces was powerful. They are best identified and understood in current contexts as well as in the perspective of past events.

The articles selected for this chapter highlight now, as they did when written, the significance for current practice of lessons to be learned from our history. They make vivid the interaction of forces that influence professional development; and they emphasize the patterns and challenges of history that have and will continue to shape current and future practice.

Nacman’s article provides a comprehensive review of the growth and development of social work in health settings as perceived in 1977, when social workers were being challenged to develop accountability systems and to redefine their professional mission in health care. Nacman helps us understand the impact of current issues, examines ways in which social workers have expanded their “therapeutic repertoires,” and offers a baseline for assessing later developments.

Through her review of the origin and state-of-the-art of social work participation in medical education, Reynolds provides us with a historical perspective and overview of professional development of social work in health settings. She focuses on the contribution of social workers to both formal and informal medical education, highlighting the expanding role of social workers in health care and the enrichment of interdisciplinary teamwork.

Clarke’s article was written as a tribute to Hyman J. Weiner, a theoretician and educator who had a broad, profound, and enduring influence on the profession and its practitioners. Clarke reviews the legacy of Weiner’s perspective on systems, milieu, and public health approaches, and their applicability to current and future social work practice.

A growing emphasis on research and systematic study of practice have contributed to a firmer knowledge base, to reconsideration of theories and concepts, and to the creation of new service delivery programs and monitoring systems. Throughout the years of the journal’s publication, a steady movement can be noted away from acceptance of social work roles and functions that relied on problem identification and referral of patients by others toward the institutionalization of population approaches where professional social workers themselves identify the patients who require their services.

Two articles provide an overview of function. Germain describes a broad approach to social work practice: this includes multiple targets for intervention by social workers as they help clients cope with the stresses and changes in life style created by ill health through strengthening the potential supports within the health setting, the social network, and the inner resources of the client. As Falck assesses social work functions in health settings, he emphasizes the social nature of this practice and the need for practitioners to attain professional autonomy in the delivery of their services.

All of the authors cited consider how and in what ways external, organizational, as well as internal forces within the field itself influence theory and practice. They trace the roots of health care social work and evaluate its roles.

Social Work in Health Settings: A Historical Review

Martin Nacman, DSW

At The time of writing Dr. Nacman was Director, Social Work Division,Strong Memorial Hospital, 260 Crittenden Boulevard, Rochester, NY 14642. This article was adapted from a presentation made at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Social Work Division of the Strong Memorial Hospital, February 26–27, 1976.

SUMMARY. A retrospective account of the beginnings of social work in health care gives perspective to current concerns, challenges, mandates, prospects, and problems faced by health care practitioners and administrators.

Creation of Hospitals

During the early period of the settlement of this country, those who were sick were cared for at home. Temporary facilities were built, primarily in seaport towns, to confine those with contagious diseases during epidemics. The forerunner of the hospital as a community institution was the almshouse. Established for the containment of the destitute, the sick, orphans, criminals, and the mentally ill, many who entered were ill, and those who entered healthy were exposed to contagious diseases. In 1713 in Philadelphia, William Penn founded the first almshouse. In 1736 Bellevue Hospital was established as an almshouse in New York for the “poor aged, insane and disreputable.” Saint John’s Hospital, founded in New Orleans in 1737 as an almshouse, also accepted some paying patients. In 1815 a separate unit for children was established. This almshouse later became the County Hospital of New Orleans.¹

By the middle of the eighteenth century, services for the sick were beginning to be separated from the almshouse. Middle-class urban Americans wanted better care and were willing to pay for services. This led to the construction of voluntary hospitals which were generally started with the help of philanthropic gifts. Eleven hospitals were founded between 1751 and 1840. Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, recalled that in 1751 a friend of his, Dr. Thomas Bond, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in Philadelphia “for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers.” Franklin not only subscribed to the project himself but procured subscriptions from others and promoted a bill through the Assembly in support of this proposition.² During the Revolutionary War, New York Hospital, founded as a Revolutionary War military hospital, was the first hospital to provide systematized instruction to medical students. Massachusetts General Hospital was opened in 1821, funded more by the state than private philanthropy. The Georgia Infirmary, founded in 1832 in Savannah, and the Lincoln Hospital, founde...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• PART I
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Index