Teaching Practice Wisdom: What Can We Learn from Family Medicine?

Abstract

This article examines the similarities and differences between family medicine and social work, their histories, principles, and relationships with the scientific community, in an attempt to establish a context for the discussion of teaching practice wisdom. The author discusses the conflicts between the empirical versus heuristic aspects of our discipline and how those have impeded our pedagogical progress. Four strategies used by family medicine are described: role modeling, mentoring, precepting, and peer teaching. Suggestions are given for how those can be better utilized in undergraduate social work education. A feminist postscript urges social work to honor its tradition as a female-dominated profession and to respect different ways of knowing.