About Medicine

Diabetes, as we know, is more than just a "lifestyle illness". It is a tremendous burden on the Medical profession, and just as much (or even more) on the lives of those who suffer with it, and their families.

Attached below is a simple, self-made "Patient Information Leaflet" about Diabetes, along with a startling infographic showing the same.

Then, we get into a discussion about some unsung heroes of Medicine. Read on to find out more!

You can tell a lot about a job and the people doing it by asking them to describe their best day at work. For Ali, a 28-year-old pediatric cancer social worker, that day occurred one year ago. A 17-year-old cancer patient who had been given two months to live made a bucket list. On her list were graduating from high school and getting accepted into college. So Ali and her colleagues arranged a graduation ceremony in the hospital, at which they read off a list of the colleges to which she had been accepted.

Ali and other social workers savor such opportunities to make a difference. They got to know the patient and her family well, reached out to a variety of school officials and community leaders to make the event happen, and enabled many friends and hospital employees to participate in it. Though the ultimate outcome was heartbreaking – the patient died just days after the event – Ali cherished the opportunity to stage such a meaningful event and help make a better death possible.

This is just one example of how medical social workers so often play the role of the “glue” that holds health care together. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals typically have their hands full with patients’ medical needs. My medical colleagues and I know that performing a surgical procedure or prescribing medicines for the patient is only a part of a comprehensive plan of care, and even the best medical care may fail if it is not well integrated into the patient’s life.

Medical social workers help to ensure that the psychological and social needs, or what we in the field call the psychosocial needs, of patients and families get attended to, and that all aspects of the patient’s care – inpatient, rehabilitation, outpatient, in-home and so on – are coordinated. They ensure that medicine and life work well together. For example, a patient coping with a diagnosis of cancer or dementia may need help with services as diverse as insurance, in-home health services, psychotherapy and grief counseling.

So why are medical social workers leaving their jobs? One of the biggest problems, according to Ali, is large caseloads. “When each social worker is responsible for too many patients,” she says, “it becomes impossible to give each patient and family the level of care they need. Because you are stretched so thin, you end up tending only to the patients and families with the most urgent needs. You are forced to choose who not to care for, and that feels like failure.”

Ali cited the example of a family she had been working with the day we met for an interview: “They are functioning okay, financially stable, showing up on time for their clinic appointments. I know they need help, and that if I could spend with them the time they need, I would be able to provide them with much better support leading up to their child’s death. But because I am so busy tending to those with more urgent needs, I won’t know them or be able to support them well when it comes.”

When we understand better the crucial coordinating and caring role medical social workers like Ali play today, we see how vital it is that medical practices, hospitals, health care facilities and our whole health system attend to their concerns. When they do their jobs well, everyone – patients, families and other health professionals – wins. Ali and her colleagues are not asking for a raise. They are simply asking for the opportunity to provide the kind of care they would want for their own families.