Other Columns on Health-Related Topics
WHAT ARE MEDICAL SOCIAL WORKERS?
Medical Social Workers are graduates of schools of social work who use their knowledge and skills to provide social services for clients/patients. Generally, a social worker’s job is to help people increase their capacities for problem solving and coping. They help their clients obtain needed resources, whether these are food, clothing, and shelter, or additional medical care.
The social worker’s practice also may include rehabilitating people whose social functioning has been impaired. For example, cancer patients often feel isolated and lonely because their family and friends may stay away and even stop telephoning because they can't deal with cancer. The social worker can help reduce the feelings of isolation through support groups, and helping clients/patients to know other people who are facing the same things they are.
Some social workers help people become more self-sufficient, or avoid dependency. They may assist with strengthening family relationships, or restoring individuals, families, and groups to successful functioning. Social services include helping people get adequate financial resources for their needs, evaluating whether or not people can care for themselves or their children or other dependents. Other social services are providing counseling and psychotherapy, referrals for other services, mediation, and advocating for social causes. Medical Social Workers also provide social group work, in which people who share problems come together to work on those problems.
Other services provided by Medical Social Workers include the following:
· Supportive Counseling for Patients/Families/Partners After a Life Altering Diagnosis
· Grief Counseling
· Resources for Dealing with Chemical Dependency
· Psychosocial Assessment
· Mental Status Examination
· Collaboration with Doctors, Geriatric/Oncology/Nephrology Specialists, Case Managers, and other team members
· Long and Short Term Care Planning
· Assessment of Home and Support System
· Anticipation of Future Care and Support Needs
· Residential and Home Hospice Options
· Home Health Options
· Elder/Spousal/Child/Dependent Abuse
· Safety, housing and support planning
· Private, State and Federally Funded Short and Long Term Disability or Medicare
· Transportation
· Pharmaceutical-Funding Assistance Program
· Alternate Funding Sources (for some illnesses or conditions)
· Legal Issues
· Durable Power of Attorney
· Living Wills
· Conservatorships
· Public Guardianship
· Legal Referral (Private and Community Based)
For more information you can contact your local Department of Human Services, 501-332-2718, or call the Medical Social Workers at Hot Spring County Medical Center 501-332-1000. They are Pat Hutcheson, LSW, who covers the Intensive Care Unit, Step Down Unit and the Medical/Surgical Units; Julie Garcia, LSW, who provides services in the PsychHealth Unit and Neeley Reeder, LSW, who provides services in the Acute Rehabilitation Unit and the Emergency Room.
Neeley Reeder, LSW, is a licensed social worker at HSC Medical Center.
