Professional social work and health care: challenges for the future. Introduction.
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Delivery of Health Care↗
Biomedical subjects
M D Mailick
Publications and source records attributed to M D Mailick.
Coping with childhood asthma: caretakers' views.
Childhood asthma is a chronic health condition that affects more than 1 million school-age children and their families. Asthma is the leading cause of school absences and accounts for a substantial amount of activity limitation in children. A small pilot study of caretakers of African American and Hispanic school-age children with asthma explored the effects of the illness on families and the coping strategies used by caretakers. Large and significant correlations were found between the perceived impact in the areas of financial burden, social and familial isolation, and personal strain. Caretakers reported using active coping, planning, religion, and acceptance of the illness most frequently. The authors suggest the value of making conceptual distinctions between the burden imposed by the illness and the coping skills used by caretakers.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Disagreements in discharge planning: a normative phenomenon.
The process of discharge planning is often impeded by disagreements among family members and others involved. A discharge plan must be negotiated to meet the varying needs of participants within the context of regulatory and organizational mandates. Under such circumstances, disagreements in decision making can be anticipated, particularly for family members, who must readjust roles and relationships in the face of the crisis of illness. Support for this conceptual formulation is found in the literature, particularly in two studies that evaluated the incidence of disagreements in discharge planning caseloads. In both studies, disagreements occurred in at least one-third of the cases, with most disagreements involving family members. Neither study found substantial disagreement among professionals. Social workers who provide discharge planning services in hospitals clearly are dealing with substantial levels of disagreements among principals in the process; in fact, disagreement needs to be accepted as a normative phenomenon in such planning. This article discusses the sources of family disagreements related to discharge planning, identifies the implications for social work practice, and uses a family systems perspective to articulate an approach to intervention.
Decision Making↗
Recruitment and retention of MSW graduates.
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Burnout, Professional↗
Health concentrations in schools of social work: the state of the art.
The demand for specialized training for social workers in the health field has required schools of social work to reexamine the curricula they offer students interested in health care. The study reported here surveyed graduate schools throughout the country to determine the prevalence and characteristics of health concentrations in social work curricula and the problems and implications concerning the development of concentrations that are to be addressed by the profession as a whole.
Curriculum↗
The patient has a family: reaffirming social work's domain.
Work with the family has traditionally been claimed as the domain of social work within the hospital setting. The difficulties of expanding the scope of clinical work to systematically include the family and its needs as integral to meeting the patients' psychosocial needs can be attributed in part to the absence of a conceptual model that encompasses the patient, the impact of the illness, the family and the hospital. The authors propose a paradigm to address these multiple variables with their attendant treatment implications.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
The short-term treatment of depression of physically ill hospital patients.
There is a high prevalence of depression among physically ill adult hospital patients. An approach to short-term social work intervention with these patients is suggested, which takes into account the crucial time constraints of most social work practice in acute care hospitals. Brief treatment can reduce the debilitating symptoms of depression reactive to the stress of illness during hospitalization or in the post discharge period.
Acute Disease↗
A social work perspective on ethical practice in end-stage renal disease.
Social workers increasingly are defining problems that they encounter in practice in health settings as ethical dilemmas. A distinction is made between those practice questions that can best be answered by an appeal to theoretical or empirical knowledge and expertise (clinical questions) and those which invoke values and ethical imperatives (ethical questions). End-stage renal disease poses in high relief the practice dilemmas that are encountered by social workers and offers an opportunity to explore and clarify issues in resolving them. Using an exchange framework as a basis for analysis, common ethical problems of end-stage renal services are discussed.
Adult↗
Steps to professionalization: patient representatives.
Patient representation is one of the newest and fastest growing health care occupations. Caplow's model of the process of professionalization is used to examine how this newly formed occupational group has organized itself and has taken initial steps toward professional status. The analysis suggests that Caplow's model does not predict with complete accuracy the path followed by all occupational groups. Much depends on historical, political, economic, and institutional contingencies. In the case of patient representatives, certain events encouraged their rapid growth as a recognized occupation and moved them quickly through the first stages of professionalization. However, the very forces that supported this rapid growth hampered the development of an autonomous professional base, independent of institutional domination, and hindered continued advancement.
Consumer Behavior↗
Patient representative programs: a social work perspective.
Patient Representatives are one of the fastest growing new human service occupations functioning in hospital settings. The patient representative's role and function bears certain similarities to social work and has the potential for being seen as pre-empting part of its domain. This article describes the role of patient representatives, reports on a survey of hospitals with patient representative and social work programs and examines some of the issues that this new occupational group may pose for social workers in hospital settings.
Humans↗
Politics of interprofessional collaboration: challenge to advocacy.
Both interprofessional collaboration and advocacy for clients are highly valued social work activities; yet, when pursued jointly, they pose political dilemmas. An exploration of these activities reveals the potential for ethical dissonance and highlights the need for clear guides to professional behavior.
Ethics, Professional↗
A multimodel approach to collaborative practice in health settings.
Health care professionals, under growing pressure to improve the effectiveness of their efforts, are giving increasing attention to interprofessional processes. While many aspects of collaboration have been studied, insufficient attention has been directed to the problem of how the characteristics of the organizational environment in which the collaboration takes place shape its form and process. The authors believe that the environment of the hospital indicates need for a multimodel approach to collaborative practice, and provides clues to its implementation.
Adolescent↗