Research On The Occupational Autonomy Of Medical Social Workers In Interdisciplinary Collaboration ——A Case Study Of Shanghai

As the reform of medical and health care system continues to progress,the development of medical social work is also advancing,and interdisciplinary collaboration,as an important part of medical social work,has not yet formed a mature working model and development path.At present,the discussion on interdisciplinary collaboration of medical social workers mainly focuses on the exploration of practice models,and the research on the professional autonomy of social work mainly focuses on social organizations,but less on medical social workers,and the two are not combined.Therefore,from the perspective of professional sociology,this study explores how the professional autonomy of social workers is affected when they work with other disciplines such as medicine and nursing in the hospital setting,and examines the logic and nature of their actions from the perspective of professional sociology,taking professional knowledge,professional boundaries,and professional power.The logic and nature of their actions are analyzed.This study was conducted by qualitative research method,using text analysis method,participant observation and semi-structured interview to collect qualitative data,and collated and analyzed the qualitative data in the form of three-level coding,and finally came to the following conclusions.First,the social work profession is highly integrated and comprehensive,and its theoretical knowledge contains professional knowledge from multiple disciplines,and its practical ability also influences the professionalism of social workers to a great extent,resulting in the exclusivity and low professionalism of social work expertise,which affects its professional autonomy.Secondly,the professional boundary in the hospital field has the characteristics of stability,plasticity and mobility,and social workers and medical and nursing staff will face unclear authority and responsibility and blurred division of labor in their joint collaboration,which will have a certain impact on the clinical autonomy of medical social workers.Furthermore,physicians have a more mature professional system,and their jurisdiction in the professional field is higher than that of social workers.In the demand-oriented interdisciplinary collaboration,patients’ medical and physical needs are much higher than their psychosocial needs,and social workers’ professional power is weakened.Finally,this study synthesizes the interconstructive trends of mutual influence and shaping among professional knowledge,professional boundaries,and professional power and their constructs and effects on the professional autonomy of social workers from two dimensions: the autonomy of the corporation and the autonomy of the clinic.The article concludes by attempting to summarize the factors influencing the professional autonomy of medical social workers and suggesting feasible measures to promote the professional autonomy of social workers in terms of enhancing professionalism and increasing publicity.Based on the interdisciplinary practice of medical social workers,this paper adopts a qualitative research method to analyze the external representation and internal logic of social workers’ professional autonomy from the data,summarize the factors influencing professional autonomy,and provide ideas for medical social workers to further promote interdisciplinary collaboration and enhance professional autonomy in practice.