Social Worker
Heather Welch, Medical Social Worker - Good Samaritan Hospital
When Heather Welch started college, she had aspirations of majoring in business. “I found some of my classes to be quite boring,” she said. At the time she was doing secretarial work at a mental health agency in Springfield. “I saw everything that was going on around me and I wanted to be a part of that so I changed my major.”
Welch graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wright State University and then took her Master of Social Work degree from the Ohio State University.
She currently is a Medical Social Worker working in Integrated Care Management at Good Samaritan Hospital. Her duty station is normally the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
“Our biggest role as medical social workers is that we assist patients and their families with discharge planning,” she explained. “I see every patient here in the ICU. I assess every patient up here to make sure they have a good support system at home.” She works with families and patients to ensure that they have an appropriate and safe plan for home recovery when leaving the hospital. The medical social workers also assess reports of abuse and help people with basic needs of food, shelter and medications. “We are just simply being a support system to families and patients while they are here,” she said
Welch said that social work is a very broad field and offers many venues for employment. “Medical social work, mental health — a lot of community mental health agencies and patient mental health units — local senior resources and area agencies on aging — there are just so many choices in social work,” she said. “Which is why I chose that over counseling or being a therapist. You can do all of this under the title of ’social worker.’”
A Licensed Social Worker certification can be obtained in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree. “If you want a higher licensure status, you have to have a master’s,” Welch said. “Currently I am working on becoming a Licensed Independent Social Worker so that — someday down the line — I can do some contract work.”
Welch said there is a tremendous need for social workers. “Our population in general, there are just so many needs that need to be met and that is one of our primary goals as social workers — to help individuals meet their basic needs.” Besides the basics of food, shelter and medication, Welch says that people also sometimes need for someone to just listen.
After graduation, Welch worked for Mental Health Services in Clark County before coming to Good Samaritan.
She advises students to take any psychology and sociology courses that might be available and to take as many humanities as possible.
“Anything you can learn about human nature because you will meet so many interesting and different people every day,” she said. “I would say that the best part of my job is that I just enjoy sitting down and talking with my patients and their families, just hearing about their lives.”
Welch says that prospective social workers should learn as much about the profession as they can and participate in any opportunities for job shadowing. “It is a challenging gig and you have to be prepared to face the pressures and challenges that you have every day because there is never a dull moment in this field.”
