kind1

Well I'm not a social worker. I wish that i was ;-) I don't think that I am emotionally able to deal with the high incidence of burn-out that social workers tend to have. As far as hospital social workers, it's my understanding that it may depend on which hospital and the kind of hospital one is employed with (physical rehab, acute-care -- which is usually short-term). I'm not sure about the pace, whether a faster pace is more common or not, probably depends also on the type of hospital or setting.

I believe that sw's in hospitals deal with evaluation and discharge/after-care planning, perhaps both the patients and families. I'm not sure if they may run support groups for specific health problems as well.

Perhaps you can contact a your local hospital and ask to speak with the hospital's social work dept. You may want to talk with a couple from different settings if they're able to talk with you about what the job entails. I also find that resume books have a pretty good description of what a job entails and is more specific, as opposed to the Occupational Outlook Handbook. And some resume books are geared for people in human services/social services, allied-health, hospital-based jobs. The Occupational Outlook Handbook is helpful when looking at average pay and so forth, even though it can depend on where one lives. Good luck!