If You Don’t Know Who to Ask, Ask the Social Worker - World Social Work Day!

Emily Epstein, L.M.S.W - CGA-IGC JEDI Committee member

March is National Social Work Month, and World Social Work Day is celebrated each year on the third Tuesday of March. It is a moment to recognize the role social workers play in supporting individuals, families, and communities.

Social workers are everywhere in healthcare. Hospitals, oncology clinics, pediatrics, transplant teams, community programs, palliative care, behavioral health. There’s a joke - if you don’t know who to ask, you ask the social worker. And I’ve come to learn there is a lot of truth to that.

Across medicine, social workers help coordinate care, connect patients with resources, and create spaces where patients can connect with others navigating similar experiences. They also provide emotional, practical, and logistical guidance that helps patients carry out their care plans.

This work becomes especially important in hereditary cancer care.

When an individual learns they have a hereditary cancer syndrome, they leave their appointment with important medical guidance from their care team. Genetic counselors and providers do incredible work helping patients understand the genetics, inheritance patterns, and recommended screening and cancer prevention strategies.

But for many patients, the real questions begin after the appointment ends: how to tell their families, what this means for their children, and how to live with lifelong cancer risk. The information can be overwhelming, and the decisions often extend far beyond the clinic visit. Many describe feeling somewhere between sick and healthy — not ill, but not quite well either.

Over the past few years, I have been exploring the growing role social workers can play in hereditary cancer care, which led to the development of the genetic social worker within our hereditary cancer program. This work complements that of genetic counselors by helping patients process the emotional impact of genetic risk, navigate difficult family conversations, and manage the practical realities of long-term cancer surveillance and prevention.

At the Genetics and Personalized Cancer Prevention Program at Weill Cornell Medicine, my work focuses on integrating psychosocial support, care coordination, peer support, and family testing assistance into hereditary cancer care, while developing scalable interventions to support patients and families.

One of the most meaningful parts of this work has been the response from the CGA-IGC community. Many colleagues have shared that they see the same needs in their clinics: patients navigating fear, family dynamics, and complex decisions that extend far beyond a single visit. Social workers already support patients across oncology and healthcare. The need is everywhere, and hereditary cancer care is no exception.

This Social Work Day is the perfect time to recognize the many oncology and medical social workers already doing this work. It is also an opportunity to think more intentionally about how we can integrate and support social workers within hereditary cancer programs so that both patients and care teams can benefit from their expertise.

I may not have all the answers yet, but I welcome the questions. After all, if you don’t know who to ask, ask the social worker.