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Indiana University studies 



In the dispensary the patients are referred to the Social 

 Service Department from the various clinics by the doctors. A 

 doctor wishes home conditions investigated, a change of employ- 

 ment secured, a prescribed diet supervised to see that it is fol- 

 lowed, an obdurate parent persuaded to consent to an operation 

 for his child, or many other things done for which the doctor him- 

 self has no time, and yet which may be all-important for the cure 

 of the patient. The task of the social worker on a certain case 

 may be merely to refer it to the proper social agency. She can 

 and does tell the patient where he can receive the necessary aid 

 and also reports to the agency concerned what she knows of his 

 character and his needs. Other agencies, in turn, refer to the 

 Social Service Department persons needing medical care who 

 perhaps come to the dispensary for the first time. They may thus 

 be assisted and steered to the proper clinic, and taken as cases 

 by the worker. Later a report of the doctor's findings or his 

 diagnosis and the metliod of treatment advised by him is made 

 to the organization which referred the patient. 



In the State Hospital the method of the Social Service Depart- 

 ment is somewhat difl'erent from that in the City Dispensary. 

 Since October 1, 1915, all new free and part-pay patients have 

 been the subjects of routine inquiry, and certain types of cases 

 are always followed. More than seven thousand cases have been 

 handled by the Department, thru both offices, between September 

 20, 1911, and April, 1919. 



The patients considered in this paper have been referred from 

 the Mental-Xervous Clinic of the dispensary, or have been in 

 the hospital, and each has a definite diagnosis of some mental or 

 nervous disorder. The first patient referred to the Social Service 

 Department in its beginning was from the Mental-Xervous Clinic.^ 

 There may be a significance in this fact, for the mental-nervous 

 patient has proved, more than any other, to be a subject for social 

 service. The doctor usually wants to know about the patient's 

 environment, family and industrial life, and facts of his heredity. 

 These can best be discovered by the social worker who visits the 

 home and perhaps the factory and homes of relatives, who becomes 

 a friend of patient and family and listens to the telling of their 

 troubles, often thereby discovering the source of the difficulty. 



As it is in this group that many of the "undesirable citizens" 

 are found, it has been a field for study along biological as well as 



2 Dr. Charles E. Cottingham referred the case. 



