Social workers training primary care physicians: essential psychosocial principles

The growth of primary care medicine is opening new roles for the social worker in medical education to provide instruction and to design curricula that include the psychosocial dimensions of medical practice. This article describes a family-oriented, community-based medical residency program in which the social work faculty plays a prominent role in the education of young physicians. The relevance of core social work principles to medicine and how they are introduced into the teaching and precepting of medical residents are discussed.