Hospital social work

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Qwerk

LCSW, private practice
10+ Year Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2011
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I'm planning to move to San Francisco when I graduate from Hunter's MSW program, and I'm contemplating hospital social work. I've chosen the Health and Mental Health field of practice specialization and expect to have medical social work fieldwork under my belt when I graduate. Does anyone have an idea how difficult it is to find employment as a hospital social worker as a first post-MSW position? Will I be expected to have non-fieldwork medical social work experience?

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I'm planning to move to San Francisco when I graduate from Hunter's MSW program, and I'm contemplating hospital social work. I've chosen the Health and Mental Health field of practice specialization and expect to have medical social work fieldwork under my belt when I graduate. Does anyone have an idea how difficult it is to find employment as a hospital social worker as a first post-MSW position? Will I be expected to have non-fieldwork medical social work experience?

My adviser did hospital social work (in oncology) for 20 years and I've picked her brain because that was one of my interests when I first started pursuing the MSW. She said that at her hospital (in Kansas), that they always wanted to hire people with experience because the setting in a hospital is so fast-paced, changing, and dynamic. She said they usually only hired people with 2 or more years in a clinical setting because they had a high turnover otherwise. Granted, this is just one hospital and things necessarily vary between and among hospitals.

If you DO have additional non-fieldwork medical social work, you're definitely in a better position to start out with.

If I remember right, San Francisco is one of those areas that is heavily saturated with MSWs and LCSWs, but I might be thinking of San Diego. Somebody who lives out West would be better able to speak to that...
 
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There are always positions for SWers. In CA, you really need to be bilingual in Spanish, and if you want medical SW having field placement experience in a medical setting will definitely help, I am from SF and have had a hard time getting something in a hospital, my field placements were not in hospitals though. I have had many other interviews in Los Angeles, being Bilingual and a male allows me to be more marketable in the field. Good Luck!
 
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