Evening star., 1941-05-09
Head Of Social Work
Al Health Bureau
Quits in Dispute
Nurses Duties Involved:
Assistont Applies
For Transfer

A Health Department controversy
centering on the duties of public
health nurses and medical social
workers has resulted in the resigna-
ton of the social work supervisor
at the Bureau of Venereal Diseases
and q request by her assistant to
be transferred.
Miss Edith McCoy's resignation
as supervisor of medical social work
at the bureau will become effective
June !. Her assistant, Mrs. Helen
Shaw, has asked to be appointed
medical social worker at Glenn Dale
Sanatoria. Their action strips the
bureau of medical social workers.
The Health Department will lose
another social worker Thursday
when it's director of social service,
Miss Lucia Murchison, becomes as
sistant superintendent of Children's
Hospital. The resignation OF Miss
Murchison, who came to the Health
Department from the hospital three
years ago when medical social work
became a part Of the departments
program, is said to have nothing to
do with the controversy.
The Controversy.
Although Acting Health Officer
Daniel Seckinger said he had not
been officially informed of any fric-
ton in the Bureau of Venereal
Diseases, Miss Mccoy disclosed that
when she had submitted her resig-
nation, she also sent in an explana-
ton of the situation at the bureau.
Her resignation was prompted, she
said, by the fact that she felt her
chief, DR.. George Leiby, preferred
to use only public health nurses in
the bureau
AS the situation was explained by
various officials, it developed at the
bureau in this way:
The work of interviewing the hum
dreds of patients who come to the
bureau clinics was done by public
health nurses until Miss McCoy's S
appointment in February, 1899. She
had received her training in the
University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
Miss Mccoy was made supervisor
OF educational and archaeological
work. which meant explaining to
patients what the disease could do
to them, persuading them to keep up
their treatments. finding out where
they had gotten the disease,
Strengthening out their emotional
problems and determining their
financial situation.
Friction Developed.
When friction between the nurses
and the two medical social workers
developed, this section of the bu-
reau was reorganized so that the
nurses would do all the interview
ing and refer to the medical social
workers cases requiring emotional
and social adjustment.
Few cases were referred to the
medical social workers by the public
health nurses. 1t was said, however,
that construction work going on in
the northwest clinic had cut down
the number of patients and the
nurses insisted that few patients
with special problems visited the
clinic. Bureau officials maintain
that if the medical social workers
had held out, more cases would have
been referred to them in time, as
their duties were more clearly de-
fined.
Study to Be Made.
DR.. Seckinger said he believed
there was room for both groups in
health work. The two work to-
gether in only one other Health
Department bureau, maternal and
child welfare. Elsewhere, there are
only public health nurses In tubercu-
losis work and only medical social
workers in the departments hos
pital permit bureau.
Miss Mary Poole, director of social
work at Children's Hospital and
head of the local branch of the
American Association of Medical
Social Workers, said the national
organization had appointed study
committee to outline the duties of
the two groups because similar sit
uations had developed In other parts
Of the country.
At the Bureau Of Venereal
Diseases, she said, it was difncult
for the nurses who had done the
whole job to see that there were
two parts to it, health education
which she believed should be the
nurses role and the solution Of
emotional and social problems. q
medical social work job.
A nursing ofIlcial In the Health
Department declined To comment on
the friction at the bureau on the
ground that II was such . con-
troveYEaAl subject"