Program Information Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Social Work Intern
The Intensive Care Unit Social Work Internship provides students with comprehensive, hands-on experience within two high-acuity critical care environments at Enloe Medical Center: the Cardiac Care Intensive Care Unit (CCICU) and the Neuro Trauma Intensive Care Unit (NTICU). Each unit is comprised of 12 beds and provides care to critically ill and injured patients experiencing complex, and often life-threatening, medical conditions.
Under the supervision of a medical clinical social worker, the ICU Social Work Intern will work with patients and families facing some of the most serious and emotionally challenging circumstances encountered in healthcare. Patients may present with severe cardiac conditions, traumatic brain injuries, neurological emergencies, catastrophic injuries, multi-system illness, or other critical diagnoses. Some patients will have extremely guarded prognoses, including circumstances in which death is anticipated or ultimately occurs.
The ICU Social Work Intern will work closely with a highly specialized interdisciplinary medical team, including intensivists, neurosurgeons, cardiac surgeons, hospitalists, nurses, respiratory therapists, rehabilitation professionals, and other specialty providers involved in the patient’s care. Unlike the behavioral health and Emergency Department settings, the ICU social worker’s primary collaboration is with medical and surgical providers rather than psychiatric providers. The intern will have the opportunity to observe and participate in complex interdisciplinary communication and understand the role of social work within critical care medicine.
A significant component of ICU social work involves supporting patients and families through complex medical decision-making. The intern may assist with identifying and locating family members or legally appropriate decision-makers, gathering collateral information, clarifying family systems and relationships, and helping the medical team understand the patient’s previously expressed wishes, values, beliefs, and goals of care. The social worker may facilitate communication when family members are uncertain, distressed, or have differing perspectives regarding the patient’s care.
The ICU Social Work Intern will have opportunities to assist with and observe family meetings involving physicians, nursing staff, and other members of the medical team. These meetings may address changes in medical condition, prognosis, treatment options, goals of care, code status, transition of care, or end-of-life decisions. The intern will learn how social workers support communication between families and medical providers while remaining neutral, patient-centered, trauma-informed, and respectful of patient autonomy.
The intern will also gain experience assisting patients and families with advance care planning and advance directives when clinically appropriate. This may include helping patients identify their healthcare wishes, discussing the importance of identifying an appropriate healthcare decision-maker, supporting conversations regarding previously expressed wishes, and helping families navigate situations in which a patient is unable to communicate their preferences. The intern will learn to recognize the distinction between providing social work support and providing legal or medical advice, and will work within appropriate professional and supervisory boundaries.
Patient identification and family collaboration are also essential components of ICU social work. The intern may assist when patients arrive without adequate identification or when family members have not yet been located. Responsibilities may include gathering available identifying information, conducting collateral searches within appropriate hospital procedures, contacting potential family members or support persons, and helping establish communication between the patient’s support system and the medical team.
The ICU Social Work Intern will also have the opportunity to work directly with the region’s organ and tissue donation network when a critically ill patient may be a potential candidate for organ donation. The intern may assist with family communication, provide emotional support, participate in interdisciplinary coordination, and observe the complex psychosocial considerations involved when donation becomes part of a patient’s medical course. This experience provides exposure to the intersection of critical care, end-of-life care, family systems, grief, ethics, and organ donation.
The intern will gain significant experience supporting families experiencing anticipatory grief, complicated medical uncertainty, sudden changes in prognosis, traumatic injury, and death. When a patient dies or death becomes imminent, the social worker provides emotional support, assists with communication and decision-making, and helps families navigate the immediate practical and psychosocial needs associated with loss. The intern will have opportunities to observe and participate in these interactions under close supervision while developing an understanding of grief, loss, family dynamics, and culturally responsive end-of-life support.
The ICU environment requires social workers to remain attentive to rapidly changing clinical circumstances. A patient’s condition, prognosis, treatment plan, or goals of care may change within minutes or hours. The intern will learn to prioritize competing needs, respond appropriately to urgent requests from the medical team, communicate effectively during emotionally charged circumstances, and maintain professionalism and clinical boundaries in situations involving significant distress, uncertainty, conflict, or loss.
The Social Work Intern will also develop skills in advocacy, resource coordination, psychosocial assessment, family systems assessment, crisis intervention, trauma-informed care, grief and loss support, advance care planning, patient identification, surrogate and decision-maker identification, interdisciplinary communication, and ethical considerations in critical care. The intern will learn how social workers contribute to patient-centered care even when a patient is unable to participate directly in their own treatment decisions.
Because patients admitted to the CCICU and NTICU frequently require continued medical care following their critical illness, the ICU Social Work Intern will also gain an understanding of transitions of care and the psychosocial factors that affect recovery and disposition. The intern may assist with communication and coordination as patients transition to other levels of care, including rehabilitation, skilled nursing, long-term acute care, hospice, or other appropriate services. The intern will learn that successful ICU social work often involves preparing patients and families for what comes next rather than simply addressing the immediate crisis.
This internship is particularly well suited for students who are interested in medical social work, critical care, trauma, neurology, cardiology, end-of-life care, grief and loss, healthcare ethics, or interdisciplinary hospital practice. Students should be prepared to encounter patients with severe and potentially fatal illnesses and injuries and to work alongside families experiencing intense emotional distress, uncertainty, anticipatory grief, and loss.
The ICU Social Work Intern will be encouraged to develop increasing independence in clinical observation, psychosocial assessment, family engagement, communication, advocacy, and intervention while receiving ongoing supervision and support from experienced ICU social workers and interdisciplinary critical care professionals.
This internship offers students an opportunity to experience the depth and complexity of hospital social work at its highest level of acuity. Through work in the CCICU and NTICU, interns will learn how social workers help patients and families navigate critical illness, catastrophic injury, complex medical decisions, uncertain prognoses, end-of-life care, organ donation, grief, and transitions in care while remaining grounded in patient dignity, autonomy, compassion, and evidence-informed social work practice.