scrubs or er?

i started my internship this week! i keep trying to decide if the reality is working in a hospital is more like "scrubs" or "er". it's not a whole lot like "house", which is my current favorite medical show, so that's a little disapointing. here are my first impressions:

the hospital employs social workers to do a wide variety of things, including aiding new parents, helping kids who have been abused or neglected and helping the families of the elderly obtain services for their loced one. jeff is my internship supervisor. he's been a social worker at the hospital for 20+ years, so i figure i can prolly learn something from him. *grin* jeff divides his time between two floors: 3 North East and 2 East. 3NE has a lot of elderly patients and is the primary floor for patients with cystic fibrosis and other respratory problems, so there are patients of all ages. 2E is the psych floor, and it's on permanent lock down so it will be an interesting challenge. there are 8 beds and this week they were all full. there are psychologists who do the primary mental health care for the patients but jeff is responsible for helping the patients transition back to the outside world. this week we helped a young woman get insurance information from her mother who lives out of state. it's interesting that the social worker had to be called in on that issue, it seemed to me that the nurses could have done the same thing we did. but when i asked jeff about it he said that there are many times when an outside person with some "authority" can make all the difference.

on 3NE we consulted with families and referred 4 people to hospice. jeff said that is an abnormally high number of referrals. the hospice people were really amazing in dealing with the families (all of our patients were not coherent) and helping them make the terribly difficult decisions they had. one family had was really opposed to hospice and the medical team got an earful about how they were "killing our mother." but once they all understood the medical reality of their mother's situation they realized that the best thing for her was to manage her pain and make her as comfortable as possible for the end of her life. this really speaks to the patience of the team and the social worker in explaining things and doing their best for the best interest of the patient. tho, in private the team expressed their impatience, it didn't effect how they dealt with the family. i also learned some things i don't want to do when i get my own cases, which should be next week.

i'm assigned here for both semesters; a total of 240 hours/semester. that gives me a lot of time to absorb. so far, i am really liking it and feel like i'm in a position to actually help people who need it. here's the only negative so far: my work day starts at 7am. wish me luck!!!

Saturday, September 30, 2006