Interdisciplinary Expectations of the Medical Social Worker in the Hospital Setting: Part 2

Abstract

This second part of a survey report focuses on the views of physicians, nurses, and social workers concerning the role of medical social workers in addressing health-related patient problems. All three groups, but particularly physicians and nurses, were more likely to see counseling services as a social worker's job when the client was a family member of the patient, rather than the patient, and when the objective was to modify social-environmental problems of the client rather than to support or modify the person. Also, all three groups, but particularly physicians and nurses, were likely to perceive environmental problems of patients, more than emotional or behavioral ones, as an area distinctive of social work. In contrast to previous study findings, physicians and nurses did not wish to exclude social workers in hospitals from counseling patients and from addressing psychosocial problems; they just did not see these activities as distinctive of social work.