Reflection 4

The fourth chapter, of the book, discusses how hospitals were evolved over the years and also social work in the hospitals. Hospitals, in the beginning, were called almshouses. Almshouses were established in the 1700’s for the less fortunate. Finally, in the 1800’s hospitals were recognized and determined the specific place for medical care. Hospitals have progressed a lot over the years and changes are still made every day. Social work in hospitals was also introduced in the 1700’s. There are many specific duties they perform within the hospital and the main goal is providing care to help anyone needed. “Caring at the acute level, that is, secondary level of health care, refers to providing needed assistance to support comfort and function while the person is temporarily impaired by illness or injury to enhance or facilitate the curative or recovery process” (Cowles, L.A.F., 2013, p.148). Social work uses this care intervention to direct many problems, such as: physical, psychological, or social comfort and function. The mission of a social worker in the health care field is “providing medically related social and emotional services to patients and their families in accordance with their medical condition, treatment and recovery” (Cowles, L.A.F., 2013). Social workers are faced, these past recent years, with choosing who receives a specific treatment or transplant. Typically these decisions are made off of the patient’s insurance. This is a hard decision and is causing some controversy in the medical settings, especially with social workers. Everything over time changes, and throughout the fourth chapter, I learned social workers along with hospitals have too over the years.