Walden University Week 3 Medical Social Work Discussions Responses
Question Description
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
Respond to at least two different colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways:
Expand on your colleague’s post by providing a different perspective on the diverse health care settings for the social work profession.
Share additional challenges and limitations that your colleague did not list.
Suggest different strategies to overcome or address the challenges and limitations.
DB 1
Michael
Post a brief description of a specific discipline of medical social work that you find interesting.
The specific discipline of medical social work that I find interesting is being a grief counselor or bereavement counselor. My focus would be working at a Hospital or grief counseling within a hospice agency. There are different types of grief counselors and my focus would be on the death of a loved one or someone close to them. One of my Elective credits that I received while taking my BSW was a class called “Death and Dying”. I found it to be very helpful and eye-opening. Many people suffer from different types of bereavement, many of which fail to seek out someone to talk to and open up to. Being able to recognize and diagnose the different types of grief and levels of grief I find to be very important.
Explain the scope of the medical social work practice within the discipline.
Grief counselors in medical social work practice, assist individuals and families dealing with loss, most often the death of a loved one. This type of counseling can be done in groups, family sessions, couples or individually. As a grief counselor would need to understand that grief is a normal response to loss, it is not something that a person can overcome or recover from (Winokuer et al., 2012). You guide clients through the process of healthy grieving in the hopes that you can assist them in moving forward with their lives (Winokuer et al., 2012). Grief counselors also refer clients to resources in the community that can assist in their recovery and connect them with other services they might need such as legal aid or advice, financial assistance and sometimes housing(Winokuer et al., 2012).
Explain how you might apply your professional roles within the scope of practice to meet the needs of the patients in this discipline.
I would be guided by the NASW code of ethics. If I received employment as a grief counselor in a hospital or hospice setting, I would be very aware of my boundaries and my knowledge at the time of the situation my client is in. If I am unfamiliar or have little experience in the grieving process that the client is going through, I would put in a referral to another therapist that has more experience in the situation. Competence is a value in the NASW code of ethics and the ethical principle states; “Social workers practice within their areas of competence and develop and enhance their professional expertise” (NASW, 2017).
Explain how you might address the needs of the patients that are beyond the scope of practice of your selected discipline.
As a social worker, I would strive to never go outside of my scope of practice. To me, it would be like your child’s pediatrician offering to do heart surgery. Both are doctors but have different scopes of practice.
National Association of Social Workers. (2017). Code of ethics. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of…
Winokuer, H., Harris, D., & Darcy, H. P. F. (2012). Principles and practice of grief counseling. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
DB 2
Karlee
The area of medical social work is Hospice, this is where I got my first taste of social work experience, so it holds a special place in my heart for me. I think that hospice hits on several aspects of medical social work. Psychosocial support, the social worker is there to not only support the patient but the family as well. The social worker works with the patient and family to help with those hard choices that come with the end of life. Another is disciplinary teams; a social worker is not the only person working within a hospice setting for each patient. You have nurses that see to the physical care of the individual, you have chaplains that deal with the spiritual needs of the patient and family, and then you have the social workers who are there for anything in between for the patient not limited to finding proper items the client may need, getting in touch with family about patient’s condition. Then discharge planning, if the client comes from a hospital onto hospice the social worker can sit down with the patient and family and find out how they want to die, what they may need at home as far as medical equipment, and other important pieces of information.
Beyond the scope of the social work process, I would want to let the family know that we are not there to just watch the patient die a slow death I would let the patient and family know that we are there to support them in the process in any way we can. I think that people misperceive what hospice is and I would want to explain what it truly is. As far as what I could do within the scope of what a social worker should do is well anything that I can to make the process as easy as possible. Show the patient and family the value of the loved one, the respect that I can show them through a hard process. Let them know that they are valued even in the toughest of times.
As far as what I can do to go above and beyond for my patients is, I can be that extra set of eyes. If a patient is in need of food but hasn’t got the extra money to spend, I can look into resources such as food banks and meals on wheels services. If a patient is wheelchair-bound but has no ramp to get into their home, then I can find resources that will come and build ramps for the clients and either free or little cost. I know that all of these things are simple but I also think that these are things that people may not think to ask or do for their patients.
