Are you able to articulate??
April 30, 2009, 7:42 pm
Filed under:
LCSW,
MSW,
balance,
hospital social work,
job,
social work,
social work practice | Tags:
introspection,
joy,
tragedyAre you, as a social worker, able to articulate why you enjoy your job? I recognize that I’m operating on the premise that you actually, do in fact, enjoy your job. I guess “enjoy” probably isn’t the best way to describe how I feel about my job, and maybe that’s the crux of the problem.
I feel like my work is meaningful and I feel that I am effective in what I do. I also can’t imagine doing anything else. I look forward to going to work every day. I am also glad to go home at the end of every day..but I guess that would be a whole different post if that wasn’t the case.
I also recognize that my job is very stressful and sometimes I find it very difficult not to carry some of that home with me. But, I really do enjoy my job. I’m just trying to figure out how to get the husband to “get it”. And I guess if you don’t do this work, maybe it would be hard to understand how you can face a day with joy. Yes, I see some very sad situations. Some situations I see are so sad you would think that they were conceived in an author’s mind for a work of fiction. I guess I am able to find joy in going to work because I feel like I can step in and hopefully provide some guidance to people who are truly lost in their crisis. That is enough for me…I am not changing the world, or even people’s lives…I’m just, maybe, helping them right their course. And that is enough.
Another post about the husband…
April 30, 2009, 5:58 pm
Filed under:
LCSW,
MSW,
balance,
family life,
home life,
hospital,
hospital social work,
husbands,
job,
mom,
social work,
social work practice | Tags:
decompression,
mommy,
work,
working momsIt seems that this issues always comes up for us when I’ve had a hard day at work. Right now, I’m dealing with a case that is just about the most complicated any of us have come across in our careers. So, needless to say, I’ve had a hard time tonight turning it off. And the husband wants me immediately switch to my mommy role the moment I walk in through the door.
I tried to explain to him why it can be hard for me to do that, he says, “Well, I thought you said you like your job. Should I just take something so you don’t have to work so much?” He is having a hard time reconciling my statements of enjoying my job with my statements of needing some decompression time after work.
So, I think my plan from here on out, will be to not enter the house immediately upon coming home. I’ll probably change in to my exercise clothes at work and then park at home and go for a long walk. We’ll see how that goes.
When you call a fellow MSW…
and you would like to get some help from that fellow MSW, first of all, you should let them finish their sentences. Secondly, you shouldn’t accuse them of being a new graduate. Thirdly, not question why they don’t have their LCSW. Fourth, don’t tell them that they should completely disregard policy guidelines set forth by their employer simply to make your life easier. As you can see, this conversation didn’t go so well.
Swine Flu
So, I’m still trying to figure out how big of a deal this is. I’m feeling like this may be being overblown. We’ve heard very little about this at work. Basically, there was a statement put on our intranet stating that the doctors were ready to respond. We’ve been told to make sure to wash our hands and not to come to work sick.
One of our utilization review nurses used to be an infection control nurse. She seems feel pretty confident that things should be ok. Once again, she encouraged us all to wash our hands. Of course, this goes without saying.
So far we haven’t had to deal with too many people being anxious about it in the hospital. I think it’s only a matter of time. I am sure we will have an individual in the hospital with some sort of respiratory illness and having their family afraid that they have a “pandemic” flu. Or maybe someone will have to share a room with a patient with a respiratory illness. I’m sure it’s bound to come up, even if it isn’t actually influenza of any type.
Flu Epidemic??
This story has me a little worried, especially since I work in a hospital. I’m thinking the story was breaking during my work day today. They mentioned nothing about it at work, no news bulletins, nothing. I am hoping our hospital will have some sort of response to this potential threat on Monday.
I worry about this sort of epidemic happening in tough economic times. They have made the recommendation that people exhibiting flu like symptoms to stay home from work. Are people who are living on the edge going to stay home for flu like symptoms? I doubt it. Obviously some of the victims of this virus were beyond going in to work, but maybe not in the early stages.
I also wonder how I would handle my job if there was a widespread epidemic of this nature. A few months ago, before the husband was laid off, my answer would have been simple. I would not go into work, at a hospital, and put my family at a higher risk for exposure to a virus such as this one. Now, that I’m the primary bread winner, the answer is not so simple.
Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but you never know. They’ve been saying for awhile that we’re due for an global flu epidemic.
Therapeutic Blogging?
April 24, 2009, 6:18 pm
Filed under:
LCSW,
MSW,
Therapeutic Blogging,
blogging,
hospital social work,
social work,
social work ethics,
social work practice | Tags:
catharsis,
recommendations,
therapyI met with a patient today and as they were telling me all the ways they have been coping with the stress in their life, a question popped into my head. I didn’t ask this question, but thought to myself, “I wonder if this patient blogs? Blogging would probably be another good outlet for them.” This patient shared a number of creative writing exercises they do and also an activist-like role they have taken on since being diagnosed with their illness.
But, I didn’t ask the patient that question. The first reason was I was thinking, “What will I say if they ask me if I have a blog? They would probably know I was lying if I said no.” And, to be honest, that was the main reason I didn’t ask if they had a blog.
But, as I ruminated on this throughout the day, I realized that there could be a number of reasons it wouldn’t be a good suggestion to make to a patient or client I hadn’t known long enough. I’ve done a little research on-line since coming home and most thoughts about therapeutic blogging seem to be fairly positive, such as this CNN story.
I’m thinking for me to feel comfortable suggesting blogging as a therapeutic activity I would need to know the patient well enough to know that they had the ego strength to cope with potentially negative comments on their blog. Also, I would need to go into detail with them the ramifications of public posting of their thoughts and feelings (ie, your mom/dad/husband/child/etc may discover your blog). And then I wonder, after going into all the possibly negatives with a patient, would it even sound like a very good idea to them??
So, at this time, I won’t be recommending therapeutic blogging to any of the patients I see. What are your thoughts? Is this something you have or will recommend to your clients?
Early Intervention….
The D had his evaluation with the Early Intervention specialists today. We met with a child development specialist and a Speech/Language pathologist. Developmentally, the D is doing just fine. Of course, I wasn’t concerned about that. The main reason we were there was for a Speech/Language evaluation.
He passed the language portion of the evaluation. He didn’t demonstrate any evidence of disfluencies during the 45 minutes to one hour we spent at the evaluation. Because of the symptoms I reported (ie, the D saying things like “I can’t talk!” when having a lot of trouble with stuttering, having a great deal of tension in his neck when stuttering, and no air passage when stuttering) they want to do another evaluation. So, they will becoming to the house in a couple of weeks to see him in a different setting. So, I won’t be present for that and they also wanted the G to be there so they can see how that affects his speech.
The Speech/Language pathologist wanted to qualify us for Early Intervention services but was not sure if she could just based on a parent report. She said she would like to see him followed by a Speech/Language therapist for awhile to maybe break the cycle he has of stuttering for a period of time and then getting better and regressing. So, we’ll see how he does in a couple of weeks.
A blog worth mentioning!
And then some! I can’t remember if I ever made a post about this blog. This is a blog by a friend I met through an on-line support group for moms who had children in February, March, or April of 2003.
I have to say I just love her blog! She is very insightful, has a diversity of subjects that she covers and is often times pretty damn funny! You should check out her blog!!
Wow!
Life in Brief has reached a new milestone! I’m over 10,000 hits! Wow!
Doing the right thing…
April 21, 2009, 9:08 pm
Filed under:
Germany,
MSW,
job,
reading,
social work,
social work ethics | Tags:
Diane Ackerman,
Holocaust,
moral decisions,
Nazi Germany,
The Zookeeper's WifeThis is a theme, I think, in every social worker’s career. Are we doing the right thing for our clients, their families, for society. I like to think of myself as a person who strives to do the right thing.
However, I feel like maybe in certain circumstances I wouldn’t always be as strong in that stance as I would like to think. I’m reading “The Zookeeper’s Wife” right now. I have read several books, both fiction and non-fiction, based on the Holocaust. One of the main things these stories always bring up for me is, “Would I be as brave as these people were.” The zookeeper and his wife, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, risked their lives and the life of their son to rescue and protect over 100 Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. I wonder if I would be brave enough to risk so much in order to do the right thing.
It’s easy to have a knee jerk reaction when thinking about something like this. It’s easy to say, “Well, of course I would do the right thing!” Unfortunately, I don’t know. I think of all the people in Germany and the occupied countries that turned a blind eye to what the Nazis were doing. I don’t think those people were totally evil. I don’t even know that I can say they were completely cowardly, not having been in that situation before.
If nothing else, reflecting on this topic, and thinking of people who made very difficult decisions that held their very existence in the balance, makes me realize that I can probably buck up and handle a doctor being angry with me for doing the right thing.
