Medical social worker jobs are available in a number of similar environments; these can be assisted care centers, convalescent homes, hospitals and others. These professional social workers help with the assessment of individuals in advance of their discharge or to attend the needs of the patient and the patient’s family during confinement. There are a number of services that they provide, not just while the individual is in the care facility but before and after this takes place.
Not all medical social worker jobs require the same training. Most have already received a master’s degree in social work (MSW) while others have gone on to become a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) which demands two additional years of training and successfully passing a board examination. A medical social worker does not necessarily have to have the same educational attainments; in many cases a bachelor’s degree in social work is sufficient although the trend is to hire those with higher levels of education and training.
Many healthcare social workers jobs depend on the type of facility the individual is assigned to. If, for example, the social worker is working in a children’s hospital no doubt they will have a great deal of interaction with the child’s parents. They may be tasked with the responsibility to see to it that the family members are supported during the time their child is in the hospital, helping them arrange for social benefits if applicable, finding the family accommodations during the time the child is hospitalized and providing the family understand what benefits they may be entitled to to help offset both real expenses and emotional costs of seeing their child hospitalized.
The family is one thing; the medical social worker may also coordinate with other hospital services that are of use. These services may include nutritional advice for example or child life services. The goal is to provide continuity of care from the day the child is admitted to hospital until the day the child is discharged and to make sure that upon discharge everyone is up to the task and ready to comply with any outpatient services or treatment requirements.
Anyone involved in this profession can expect to deal with mountains of paperwork and interaction with other social agencies as well as continued involvement with the medical professionals involved in patient care. A medical social worker needs to be able to keep a cool head under pressure to be able to handle the work load and tensions associated with the job.
