"Gaining A Firm Foothold":A Study On The Embedding Path Of Medical Social Work Into Medical System

Since 2009,with the continuous deepening of the medical system reform,social work services have been included in the hospital service evaluation system,driving the social work industry to grow rapidly.From the author’s observation and thinking during internship in hospitals,a question was generated that how social work as an "outsider" steps into the mature medical system?Taking the embodiment theory as theoretical reference,this study aims to explore the path of medical social work embedded in the medical system in Shanghai through in-depth interviews with eleven medical social workers in hospitals in Shanghai.The embodiment theory states that the embedding object will be influenced by many social factors such as politics,economy and culture when embedded in the subject.On the foundation of previous studies,it was found that cognitive embedding,technology embedding and political embedding,as the main part of this study,are the three embedding paths of social work into medical system.The findings also shows that the medical social work embedding in medical system is on the basis of political embedding,with technology embedding as a method and cognitive embedding as a target.What is revealed from the research results is that the goal of embedding medical services into medical systems should be reached by following the direction of policies,improving the professionalism of medical social workers and their functional areas,as well as expanding the team of medical social workers and their influence on medical system.