Abstract
90 Since the inception of social work in tire United States about 1905, delivery of social services in hospitals has been geared almost exclusively to the inpatient. Phillips notes that medical social work has taken the hospital and pattern for its role model. This imposes on social work practitioners the responsibility for a dual identification; they must relate both to the aims and goals of the health agency of which they are a part and to their own profession. 1 That outpatients have been a long neglected group in the American care system is a fact of history. A 1946 study by the American Hospital Associa tion showed that only about 44 percent of hospitals had outpatient departments, most of them in nonrural areas. 2 Ambulatory services in hospitals were held in low re gard. Notkin describes the slow change:
Published Version
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