The clinical social worker as a member of the health team in a coronary care unit

Abstract

In the course of developing a pattern of assistance to the patient about to be discharged from a coronary care unit, the professional health team at the University of California at Los Angeles Hospital anticipates and treats in advance the medical, social, and emotional problems of the patient which might tend to create a crisis at the time of his re-entry into his former world, possibly a new and much-changed world dictated by the nature of his illness. The professional appraisals at UCLA are continually reinforced by the practical and social approaches of the clinical social worker who, by the nature of her training, is able to see the patient's illness in its full social and psychological framework, rather than as an isolated phenomenon.