This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:

♦Address the historical perspectives and foci relative to medical social work in health care and its evolving synergy with hospice care and palliative care

♦Include a discussion of the legislative and political issues that affected both the social work profession and institutions in which social workers practice

♦Give impetus to the importance of social work's contribution to the interdisciplinary aspects of helping patients and families confronting catastrophic diseases and life-threatening illnesses

♦Contribute a personal and historic perspective that helps to build a foundation for the balance of the textbook