Medical social work is a professional part of social work. Within health and medical organizations, medical social workers, as members of medical team, eliminate economical, social or elements of economical factors that may be causes for sicknesses or may obstruct treatments through activities-methodologies of social work including consultation, evaluation, treatment, inquiry-provided to clients or the family of clients to help recovery from sicknesses and rehabilitation process. Further more, the purposes could include sickness prevention, health improvement, treatment and rehabilitation, and improvement of social functions for clients and the family of clients.
Industrializing, urbanizing, and aging of current society derived various social problems, changed sickness structures and enhanced medical demands. Under these circumstances along with high recognitions for socio-environmental and psychological factors among medical professionals, the necessity of medical social workers who have knowledges in social and psychological aspects of sicknesses as well as capabilities of resolving the problems is becoming more and more significant.
Consequently, medical social workers have to satisfy inclusive and continuous medical necessities such as ordinary health management, aggressive health improvement, sickness prevention, treatment or rehabilitation. Also as medical problems have became social problems while they were individual problems in the past, cooperative efforts among various professionals are required for resolving medical problems.
For above mentioned resolution, medical social workers as medical treatment providers, have to put best efforts to resolve medical problems teaming up with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, chiropractics, rehabilitation consultants, psychologists, nutritionists, and speech pathologists etc.
In this study, based on operation statuses of social medical works, career statuses of medical social workers obtained through surveys toward medical social workers in general hospitals nationwide and opinions of medical social workers toward promotional plans that were obtained by documents analysis the current statuses and problems of medical social works are analyzed for searching promotional plans of medical social works. With these results the main purpose of this study is to provide high quality social medical services, enhance professionalism of medical social workers and contribute in development of professionalized social medical services in general hospitals that would benefit management of hospitals.
As a result of this study, the promotional plans for development of social medical works are;
First, general hospitals should have more than one social medical worker assigned and recruit social medical workers to suit the criterion for the computation of sickbeds in accordance with the Para. 5 of Subsec. 2 of Sec. 24 of the Enforcement Ordinance of the Medical Law.
Second, for general hospitals to activate social medical work, the legal arrangement is needed for them to secure their own space for the counselling office and operate all kinds of programs through the practical use of social service manpower so that inpatients and their caregivers may live a comfortable life.
Third, the institutional arrangement is needed for the organization of the general hospital to carry out specialized social medical work activity.
Fourth, general hospitals should provide social medical workers with an opportunity for the acquisition of technical knowledge, continuous education and training, overseas research our and the like in order to improve their quality as professional.
Fifth, efforts should be made for the understanding and publicity of social medical work. And the cooperative medical system with other medical professionals is mere than important than anything for social medical work services to be provided for patients in a timely and proper manner. Social medical workers are required to introduce their role to other medical professionals clearly and make other medical professionals known to patients and their caregivers so that they may receive good medical treatment.