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Feasibility Report

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Introduction

Medical social work also referred to as hospital social work is a social work sub-

discipline. Basically, medical social workers are people who labor in various medical sectors like

hospices or long-term care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, community health agencies,

outpatient clinics or even hospitals. They offer psychosocial help to patients and those affected

by the patient’s situation like the family members and friends where necessary. They do

assessments on the patients’ and families’ psychosocial functioning and intercede as necessary to

rectify the situation (Banks, 2012). Some of the necessary interventions that are applied by social

workers in order to help the affected patients and families include connecting them to essential

support and resources in the community.

There are various ways of connecting the victims to essential support and resources in the

community including facilitating patients to strengthen and expand their network of social

supports, providing supportive counseling, providing grief psychoanalysis and providing

psychotherapy. The main duty of a hospital social worker is to reestablish balance in the life of

an individual the social life and the families too. This helps in assisting the victims to have a

quicker recovery from illnesses. It also helps in strengthening the victim and giving him/her the

ability to reintegrate and adapt to the society. The professional medical social workers work in

collaboration with other disciplines such as speech recreational therapy, occupational therapy,

physical therapy, nursing, and medicine.

Medical social workers specialize in mental health care, inpatient medical, palliative,

geriatric and public health. Mainly, they are found in medical settings like rehabilitative care

centers, nursing homes, and related home-care services. Some professional hospital social

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workers decide to specialize in a specific area. For example, a medical social worker can

specialize in serving patients that are awaiting transplants or babies receiving neonatal care.

Those who don’t specialize normally serve a large diversity of patients with different medical

issues. Examples of instances that medical social workers are involved include suicidality,

medication adherence and management, independent living resources, homelessness, end of life

decisions, catastrophic disability and terminal illnesses.

Core Social Work Values

As a social worker, there are certain values that assist an individual in order to cope with

the many challenges of oppression and vulnerable issues. Human relations, social justice,

compassionate service, individual dignity, and integrity are some of the main principles. The

core principles are characteristic of the efficiency of activities that concern social work and

agendas. The purposes of core values in medical social work include guidance of the practices

experienced in the social work. Summarizing the ethical principles that are used to establish

standards of professionalism and also establishing a moral foundation of medical social workers.

These principles assist medical social workers in identifying legal conflicts of interest and

professional obligations (Banks, 2012). These principles are public standards that relate the

public to social workers during their interaction and can be used to hold them accountable for

irregularities.

Giving services to people who are in need is the primary goal of a social worker. It is a

public service that resolves and manages the numerous medical social problems. Medical social

workers must recognize and put serving the public before their personal gains and self-interests.

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All social workers campaign for social justice. Social injustice happens when the society or

individuals dehumanizes or degrades some people in the society. A medical social worker should

value the dignity of every victim that appears. Treating a psychological victim in a respective

and compassionate way is a way of recognizes ethnic diversity, cultural norms, and individual

differences. Clients should be socially promoted, in order to boost self-determination.

Social workers strive to increase their clients’ capability to change, address their own needs and

become self-reliant. Social workers are always aware that they are simultaneously responsible to

their clients, the law, and their organization. They resolve conflicts between clients and society

in ways that are respectful and socially responsible.

In the book of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” medical social work values were

neglected. This led to worsened health situation for the character Henrietta. It also caused Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorders to the family members. Henrietta Lacks raised numerous queries

about human rights and medical ethics subjects. Henrietta has not informed that her sample cells

that were taken for study during her first cancer treatment. She was also not informed that all the

treatment she was getting would turn her infertile. These medical misbehaviors were uncultured

but were common at those times. There never existed any law that required doctors to ask for

tissue samples from patients. There was this assumption that doctors and social workers had the

knowledge of the possible outcomes of the patients when making decisions and performing

procedures. The medical social workers also felt that it would be fair to use some black patients

like Henrietta for the experiment since they were receiving treatment for free. In other occasions,

medical ethics were highly abused in the book. An example of such a scenario is when Dr.

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Southam injected weak and ill patients with cancer cells to experiment the strength of their

immune system in fighting the disease. This would have led to serious effects on the victims.

Challenges in Mental Health Social Work

More than 50% of the mental health care specialists are composed of clinical social

workers. This is according to statistics undertaken by the National Association of Social

Workers. Majority of the patients that experience mental health problems need utmost support

since they experience very challenging moments in their life. Research has shown that one in

every five teens and one in every four American adults experience mental sickness. Mental

illnesses do not necessarily mean that an individual is not of a sober mind. There are several

ranges of mental health disorders which include substance use, PTSD, anxiety, depression, and

major mental sickness. The work of medical social workers to such patients is to assess the

patients, discover their level and type of illness and provide treatment to these individuals.

Social workers’ impact on clients and communities

Students that do not perform well in school can work with a social worker to find out and

resolve the causing problems. The strengths and challenges of the learning environment are

assessed by the social worker in order to evaluate the possible reasons for poor performance. The

environmental factors, social interactions and academic performance of the student are analyzed.

Social workers induce knowledge that aid in implementing a therapeutic and academic

educational plan. During the war, veterans tend to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

According to the national center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 20 percent of the soldiers

who survived form Iraq and Afghanistan were suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The soldiers who went back home from Vietnam rated 31% of them having the Post-Traumatic

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Stress Disorder. The victims of this disorder continually remember the traumatic events that

happened during the war. The results of this to the victims include thoughts of suicide,

depression, anxiety, and stress. In such a situation, a social worker is assessed, treats and refers

the patients to the appropriate resources. These unique challenges should be understood when

handling the patient.

Drug and alcohol addiction is a problematic issue in the society. Drug and alcohol addicts

affect their families and may even make negative impacts on the society they live in. Victims

often fail to function and work properly in school and job areas. In this situation, medical social

workers evaluate the challenging substance use symptoms and find ways to treat it. Appropriate

referrals and programs are advised (Banks, 2012). Family counseling and other aftercare

services are also provided.

Macro, Mezzo and Micro-social work

There are three categories of social work. These include micro, mezzo, and macro. Macro

social work involves interferences delivered on a large scale hence affecting the larger system of

care and the entire community. On the other hand, the micro-social work is generally the most

common. It happens specifically to an individual family or client. Lastly, the mezzo social work

occurs on an immediate scale. These involve institutions, neighborhoods and other smaller

groups. Examples of mezzo social practices include management of a social work organization,

community organizing. The different levels of social work often influence and overlap each

other. The distinctions between the different social work approach since they are equally crucial.

With micro social work being the most common kind of social work, the social worker

involves individuals and families to solve various issues. An example of a micro social situation

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includes an individual seeking help to find suitable health care, social services or even housing.

Individual and family counseling often fall under the patronages of micro social works. The

same is applied to individual and families that need assistance in substance abuse problems and

mental health conditions. Other micro-practices in social work include military social work

where social workers assist the soldiers to manage the challenges that go together with the life in

the military. They are also informed of the benefits entitled to them by the army services and

how to utilize them. Majority of the medical social workers are involved in the micro practice

followed by mezzo practices (Rubin & Babbie, 2007). Majority of the social workers that are

more ambitious in macro level practices. Many social workers engage in micro and mezzo

practice simultaneously. Even the most ambitious macro-level interventions have their roots in

the conversations between a single social worker and a single client.

The macro-social work practices involve the determination in offering help to clients in large

systems. Some of the examples include advocating for large-scale social policy change,

organizing a statewide activist group and lobbying to change a health care law. Macro social

work is a key distinction between other helping professions like psychiatric therapy and social

work (Saleebey, 2012). Generally, the issues addressed in micro and mezzo practices are

addressed in the macro social work. Social work research is also addressed at this level. The

process of empowering clients involves involving them in systematic changes.

Medical social work in book’s script

In the book of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, there were several characters that need a

social worker’s help. The book began as an exploration of some medical miracle. It later turned

out to be a fascinating, emotional story about racialism, painful experiences of a straggling

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family and an emotional story about racialism. The most distinguished themes were noted from

the author’s science writing and dealing with ethical matters of class and race in medicinal

research. The problems of sexism, classism, and racism experienced in the modern world are

important in understanding the Henrietta Lacks narrative the main character in “The Immortal

Life of Henrietta Lacks”. Henrietta was a black woman who was poor and not well educated.

During her life, Henrietta had, in essence, no say in her medical care. She just followed the

doctor’s words and had the faith that she would get well. This was despite the tremendous

psychological and physical pain that her cancer treatments put her through (Saleebey, 2012). The

doctors neglected her and always failed to give her information about the disease. They even

failed to inform her that the cancer treatment she was undertaking would make her infertile. The

whites believed that a black woman didn’t have the capacity to understand their decisions.

Developing a professional social work identity

In social work, empathy is a vital skill that enables a social worker to understand the

service’s experience to enable helping people effectively. Basically, individual respond to

distress and stress depending on the experiences that they have had how they tackled them . If a

client experiences a difference between the two, the response is likely to be misunderstood. The

reason for distress may also be misinterpreted. This can make practitioners to worsen the

situation by reacting unhelpfully. Developing empathy helps in understanding the feelings and

experiences of others.

Conclusion

Social work concern itself with communities, groups, families, and individuals with an

agenda to enhance the societal wellbeing and enhance social functioning. When social roles are

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performed in a proper manner and the operational institutions are provided to sustain them, the

community grows and promotes productivity. Social work applies economics, law, community

development, public health, political science, psychology, sociology and social sciences.

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References

Banks, S. (2012). Ethics and values in social work. Palgrave Macmillan.

Dominelli, L. (2017). Anti-racist social work. Palgrave.

Germain, C. B. (2010). Social work practice. Columbia University Press.

Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2016).

Empowerment series: Direct social work practice: Theory and skills. Nelson

Education.

Padgett, D. K. (2016). Qualitative methods in social work research (Vol. 36). Sage

Publications.

Rubin, A., & Babbie, E. (2007). Research methods for social work. Cengage Learning.

Saleebey, D. (2012). The strengths perspective in social work practice. Pearson Higher Ed.

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