The Post-Master’s Fellowship in Cognitive Neurology Social Work was originally developed at Beth Israel Hospital by a group of senior clinical social workers who were committed to teaching advanced level specialty skills of working with the elderly in a health care setting. The Program design is based on the philosophy that advanced practice with the elderly requires looking at the elderly individual in the context of his or her family, community and the developmental and physiological forces that impact on his or her wellbeing. The Fellowship trains social workers who will assume clinical and programmatic leadership in the field of aging. The Fellowship is a ten-month, 32 hours per week program, which typically begins mid-September and finishes mid-June. However, a Fellow may opt to begin prior to September, if this is preferable. There are three cornerstones of the fellowship program including: gaining further clinical experience, an academic component and writing a scholarly paper in the context of their fellowship work.
Applicants must have a Master’s degree from an accredited School of Social Work; preference will be given to applicants with health care experience.
The “home base” for the fellow and one of the major job training sites is the Cognitive Neurology Unit (CNU) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In the Cognitive Neurology Unit the fellow will gain expertise in working with dementia patients and their caregivers. The fellow participates with the interdisciplinary healthcare team, which consists of neurologists, neuropsychologists, neuropsychiatrists and clinical social workers. The Fellow will formulate psychosocial assessments and treatments plans for patients diagnosed with a range of diagnoses, including dementia, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, MS, and depression. Family caregivers, “hidden patients” themselves, are also a focus for attention. The Fellow will have the opportunity to speak with community groups to educate health professionals and the elderly about psychosocial issues related to aging, driving safety and the elderly and caregiver issues related to neurological illness. An exciting CNU program in which the fellow will be active is DriveWise: a driving safety evaluation program for patients with medical problems that could compromise driving skills. The clinical social worker plays a key role in this assessment process. Depending on the wishes of the Fellow, there are opportunities to spend time on various inpatient units at BIDMC working with hospitalized elderly patients and their families around clinical issues relating to adjustment to illness. The Fellow will be exposed to working with the elderly in the community as well, since this represents an important component of the continuum of care. Utilizing the adult learning model, this aspect of the Fellowship is tailored to meet the needs and interests of the Fellow.
THE ACADEMIC COMPONENT
Lectures, Teaching Rounds, Continuing Education
The Fellow has ample opportunities, within this Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, for exposure to formal learning. BIDMC’s Social Work Department has a monthly lecture series, “Social Work Grand Rounds”, that the Fellow is invited to attend. Another lecture series, “Topics in Gerontology” is offered yearly and it is targeted to clinical and social policy issues that relate to the elderly. There may be other Departmental offerings that are part of the Department’s Continuing Education program that are of interest to the Fellow – a brochure of the year’s offerings will be available in September. Our Psychiatry Department and the Division on Aging offer regular lectures that the Fellow may wish to attend if they are relevant. The Fellow will periodically review the schedule with the Fellowship’s Coordinator to make sure that there is a good balance between the clinical and the academic components.
THE SCHOLARY PAPER
This component of the Fellowship is usually anticipated by each Fellow with great anxiety, but the final product – the polished paper – is viewed as the pinnacle experience of the year. The paper represents the blend of the academic and the clinical components of the Program, integrating the fields of social work, healthcare, and gerontology. A writing coach helps to guide the Fellow through the process. At the mid-point of the year (in January) the Fellow and the writing coach meet to discuss options for the focus of the paper. Periodic meetings keep the Fellow “on track” with schedule deadlines for the paper which include the literature search, the paper outline and then the drafts of the paper. Ideally, the theme for the paper develops from an experience the Fellow has had in the program – perhaps from a clinical interaction that sparked an area of interest for further inquiry.
Examples of papers that have been written by former Fellows include: “Home Visits: The Home as a Setting for Clinical Social Work with the Elderly”; “Relational Resilience: A New Perspective for Understanding the Elderly Person’s Relationship with God”; “Things Were Different Then: Countertransference Issues for Younger Female Therapists Working with Older Female Clients” and “Journey of Separation: Elderly Russian Immigrants and their Adult Children in the Health Care Setting”. Several of these papers have been published `in professional journals. Others have been given as formal talks. The final paper must be submitted to the Program Coordinator early in June in order for the Fellow to successfully complete the Fellowship. In June, the Fellow gives a brief overview of the paper to the Social Work Department at the monthly staff meeting. It has been a tradition for the Fellow to return to the Hospital the following Spring to present the paper, in full, to staff through our continuing education program.
For further information about the program, contact Lissa R. Kapust, LICSW, Program Coordinator, 617-667-5150, lkapust@bidmc.harvard.edu.