How Much Medical Knowledge Must Social Workers Have?
In a perfect world, it would be the medical provider who imparts this knowledge to the patient. But in reality, it’s the social worker who often takes the lead in helping clients deal with the complexities of their medication regimen. Social workers starting out in this field may feel uninformed about the type of technical medical issues their clients are grappling with. Also, some social workers may underestimate the level of knowledge they need to help their clients. “When I used to have students from the social work school come and work with me in a hospital setting or the clinical trials network, at first I had to convince them, ‘Yes, you do need to understand these drugs and what they do, how they should be taken, and you need to realize that medication adherence is also a major lifestyle challenge for people with HIV,’” says Cox. “To some people, I think it may seem excessively technical for social workers to know all the names of the drugs and so forth, but it’s our position tha
