The Social Worker in the Private Practice of Internal Medicine

COMPREHENSIVE medical care is the goal of the internist in private practice today. Such care must often include attention to the emotional and socioeconomic factors that may complicate effective treatment of the patient's physical problems. In an attempt to cope more effectively with these factors, a social worker has been employed in the senior author's private practice. This paper presents our experiences in this relatively undocumented area.^1-3

Social workers have been part of the medical team for many years and their contribution to good patient care in hospital settings and in agencies has been amply demonstrated. The extension of the social worker's services to the field of private office practice seems a logical next step. It is not the purpose of this preliminary report to prove the effectiveness of the social worker per se, but rather to suggest that the private patient treated in the physician's office can derive