ABSTRACT
This article reviews past efforts to increase the use of social work with groups in medical settings, summarizes aspects of the present use of groups in these settings, and suggests a framework for dramatically increasing the use of group approaches at all levels of social work practice in health care. Special attention is given to the development of social work group methods and medical social work methods at mid-century, subsequent changes in the conceptualization of social work practice methods, the current synthesis of social work with groups and health social work practice, and a model reconceptualizing all social work in health care practice as group practice.
