As a social worker walks into a hospital room to speak to a patient’s wife, the scene quickly becomes chaotic.
“Looks like he’s having a fit,” said the woman.
Two nurses in crimson coats quickly attend to the patient, while the woman looks distraught. The social worker guides the woman out of the room, optimistically telling her to take a few deep breaths. The woman begins to explain why she brought her husband to the hospital.
“It’s very strong of you, I am very proud”, answers the social worker.
This is not a scene inside a hospital, but a scenario set near a hospital – in the new IU Interprofessional Simulation Center, inside the science building from IU Bloomington Health to the IU Regional University Health Center. Students from several different programs use the facility, and on this day, students from the School of Social Work and the School of Nursing work side by side.
“We do this early in their education, so this kind of teamwork and collaboration doesn’t seem so foreign,” said Tammi Nelson, senior lecturer at the School of Social Work.
After the simulation is over, the students who participated and those who observed reflect on what went well and what could be improved. They commend Mariangella Consiglieri, who played the role of a social worker in the script, for her upbeat approach and reassuring words when addressing the patient’s wife. In terms of what they could have improved, Consiglieri and the nursing students who were part of the script agreed that they could have presented themselves better to each other and to the patient and his family.
“If the family sees that there’s this cohesive team coming together with their expertise, it’s heartwarming,” Nelson told the students.
Performing these interdisciplinary exercises across the facility is just one of the many ways the School of Social Work is benefiting from its move to the Health Sciences building at IU Bloomington. The building includes a large study space, easy access to faculty, and a state-of-the-art simulation lab, and it allows social work students to better integrate with their peers. Before moving to the new facility, the School of Social Work occupied two houses on Atwater Avenue, which made it feel somewhat removed from other health disciplines.
“Building a community with other professionals is not something we’ve had a lot of opportunities for in the past,” said Kirsten Fox, a graduate student from the School of Social Work. “As social workers we will be working with many different professions, and being in a building with other health sciences is a great learning opportunity. “
Closeness to peers and professionals also provides an opportunity to broaden people’s understanding of the essential role social work plays in health care. Social workers help patients overcome barriers to solving their health problems, improving outcomes in many areas of their lives.
“A lot of times I feel like our profession is being overlooked or that people make a lot of assumptions about what social work is and what it isn’t,” Fox said. “It gives us a great opportunity to be part of the team.”
This heightened awareness facilitates greater collaboration between the School of Social Work and other disciplines, and can change the way health professionals approach community health issues – such as when the UI needed students to help with its COVID-19 vaccination clinics.
“We thought, ‘Our students can help people who might need help by understanding the forms they need to sign so that other people, like nursing students, can give the injections,” Colleen said. Rose, Student Services Coordinator and Recruitment Specialist for the School of Social Work. “This is just one example of how we can better support patients through collaboration.”
Rose expects these collaborations to grow at the Regional University Health Center – transforming the care patients receive and the future of social work.
“I think our new home at the Regional University Health Center is definitely upping the profession and reflecting that social work is essential to the delivery of quality health care,” she said.
