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Showing posts from August, 2017

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Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students

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  Happy start of the school year! Perusing social media, I came across a NASW blog article called “Guide for the First Year Social Work Student”. This post provided lots of great information tailored for new undergraduate students interested in studying social work. I wanted to take that NASW post a bit farther and compile a list of tips specific to graduate students pursuing a masters in social work (MSW). In my opinion, graduate school is a completely different experience from undergraduate, so my hope is that these tips will serve to be beneficial. Tips for New Social Work Graduate (MSW) Students -Don’t worry about grades so much When I was in graduate school, one of my professors told a story about a straight A student who committed suicide several years after graduation. His point was that given the people we need to work with, we social workers need to focus less on being perfectionists (as demonstrated by obsessing over grades and test scores) and work on being empathetic and co

Racial Profiling of Patients By Healthcare Providers

I hate having to write yet another post on discrimination against patient by healthcare providers, but I think it's important. Recently, I was called to investigate an abuse incident. The only evidence based on chart review and talking to the staff was "the nurse heard the family member yelling at the patient". As a result, this family member was essentially banned from seeing the patient, who was confused at the time. To avoid violating HIPAA, here is a super abridged version of what happened next: -The family member returned to the hospital asking for the patient's location and an explanation for the ban. I received a phone call from the nurses station, claiming that the family member was on the verge of aggression. -I was with the family member in minutes, and the person was completely appropriate with me. The family member acknowledged speaking loudly due to the patient's confused behavior and seemed apologetic. The explanation was sound, and added detai