"Sällskapsdamer" eller "ambassadörer"? : Sjukhuskuratorns syn på sin profession i tvärprofessionell samverkan

Sammanfattning: Social workers within health care approach to their own profession in multi professional teamwork The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine and illuminate how social workers perceive their own professional role, the professions legitimacy and hierarchical position in interdisciplinary collaboration of multi professional teamwork within the hospital. The empirical research is based on five interviews with medical social workers and the research was analyzed through a theoretical professional perspective. The results showed that the social workers had experiences of their professional role and their social work was an important organization within the multi professional teamwork. But the social workers had to work hard to maintain the legitimacy and many social workers describe the importance of theirs professional role, otherwise they risk to get run over by other professions. The social workers work actively to improve their profession’s legitimacy towards medical professions. This is necessary because the professions minority can have a negative effect in the social workers professional role, their profession legitimacy and hierarchical position in the multi professional teams.