On the content of the medico-social component of training social workers to work

The article outlines the content and directions of medical and social work, the list of functional tasks facing the social worker in the health care system. Medico-social work is defined by the author as a new type of multidisciplinary professional activity of medical, psychological-pedagogical and social-legal character, aimed at restoring, preserving and promoting the health of the patient. Medical and social work was formed at the intersection of two separate branches – health care and social protection of the population. The goal of medico-social work is to achieve the highest possible level of health, functioning and adaptation of persons with physical and mental pathology, as well as socially disadvantaged persons. The list of clients for medical and social work is not limited to individual contingents (socially maladapted persons, single elderly people, orphans, young mothers, large families and asocial families, victims of emergencies, AIDS patients) and covers all categories of the population. The components of medical and social work are preventive care (prevention of health disorders), therapeutic or healing (assistance to patients and their families in overcoming social and emotional problems through illness) and pathogenetic or rehabilitation (medical and social support for patients after illness). In many countries of the world, social work has become an integral component of the healthcare sector, in which the social worker provides social protection for patients through the social insurance system, provides psychological support, conducts recreational work. However, the activity of social workers in the field of health care in Ukraine is a rare phenomenon, which actualizes the need to train specialists for medical and social work. Therefore, the author argues for the need to introduce a medico-social component in the professional training and retraining of social workers.