Educational preparation for contemporary health care social work practice.

Health and health care delivery continue as dominant domestic issues in the United States. Health also represents a highly sophisticated social work practice area, requiring specific expertise for intervention with complex biopsychosocial patient care issues. Current social work curriculum content must reflect contemporary practice issues and educational resources must be improved to meet the documented need for adequately prepared health care professionals. This paper proposes a curriculum template for practice education and offers additional recommendations to enhance the educational process through increased field and academic collaboration.