And if they get into difficulty, we sit down and work them through that. We troubleshoot by offering them an opportunity to explore their own environments, their friends, their families, their church groups. There isn't a community agency that provides such a service free of charge. Someone who has no access to a caretaker of his or her own is typically someone who is relatively isolated and without a lot of resources either emotionally or financially. So the social workers can get very creative and very persuasive with extended family members, neighbors, everyone trying to help a potential patient access caregiving resources.
Churches often provide tangible support to their own members.
Probably no physician who has utilized a social worker would ever think our services could be done by telephone. Even if practicing physicians don't know exactly what social workers do, they have come to rely on social workers in those cases in which they are near their wit's end. They clearly appreciate the fact that a family or patient has needs well beyond the scope of what they are able to provide. Trilla, you have worked in the Emergency Department as well as in transplantation. The two different environments require completely different sets of skills.