Advice on hospice social worker role

Not been around this place (or anywhere in the social media for a while) but this caught my eye.

Thanks for joining in - I do really appreciate your perspective.

Anytime someone uses their experience as a cudgel it puts up warning flags for me. (I'm assuming the part about you don't know what you're talking about came from her). It also seems that being part of a team doesn't mean that you try and ride roughshod over someone trying to do their job, or that a SW, who should be good at interpersonal relations shouldn't be getting her feelings so hurt when you are talking about a exchange of perspectives among colleagues (and team mates).

She does actually have more experience in hospice - I've been there a little over a year. But I agree that using your experience as a cudgel (love that word) is not a healthy way to communicate. I did have a long conversation with another team member who has long experience with her and while we love her, she does struggle with esteem issues and does not excel at interpersonal relations where she feels (rightly or wrongly) threatened. I also spoke with a mentor who used to work hospice and does not know her. She says the manager is partly at fault here and needs to draw some firm lines which should be followed or the sw should be fired. All of us agree that we enable this behavior because we don't confront it because she gets so darn defensive. She starts her MSW program soon and I wonder if they have classes on this issue.


One aspect that bothers me is that of role confusion for the patient -- it's hard enough for pts and families to know who is the best person to ask about "X" but when the professionals are making the lines even more blurry, it's worse. As others said, it sounds like a power trip to me, to at least some degree.



I don't think that "being a patient advocate" is solely the nurse's purview, but overall assessment and developing an appropriate approach to care IS.

I completely agree that I'm not the only advocate - I was simply trying to get her to understand that my role as a nurse supercedes my role as her teammate.

Good luck with it all. Small communities/organizations can be particularly tricky to navigate -- you do need to depend across disciplines more, and it can become insular and claustrophobic. That said, using "hospice is different" as a trump card is B.S. Hospice is patient centered and family focused. You asking the patient for their OK was EXACTLY WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING -- you are giving the patient's needs and desires primacy.

I think being rural and small IS central to this all. Plus, we do socialize together - every other month we have dinner at a member's home. We see plays together. We help the sw with her role as drama coach for the local high school.

You are still professionals with different scopes of practice, and different places where you are, and should be in control of the proceedings.