Social work in a medical clinic: the nature and course of referrals to the social worker.

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Abstract
Three features of social work practice in a hospital outpatient medical clinic are examined: utilization of social service referrals; reasons for referral; and follow-up of social work with 70 patients. Of 1000 patients attending, 22 were referred to social service. Reasons for referrals, illustrated in case reports, were often not based on patients'' social needs but on physicians'' problems in the management of patients. Six-year follow-up observations indicated that the social service staff maintained contact with nearly 1/3 of the originally referred patients and over 1/2 if they had continued their care in the clinic. The implications of the findings for increasing the use of social service, for getting the most appropriate patient referred, and for interprofessional communication are discussed.