A patient does not carry only a disease. They also carry a family, a job, a debt, a fear, a past, a belief, and sometimes a despair they cannot name.

Behind a Patient is a book about medical social work — where medicine meets family, hospitals meet community, diagnosis meets living conditions, and compassion meets professional method. The book does not view the patient as a number, a hospital bed, or a billing record, but as a whole human being living within a network of economics, labor, psychology, culture, and family relationships.

Inspired by Richard C. Cabot’s classic vision of collaboration between physicians and social workers, Minh Hưng / Nguyễn Đông Hưng places the discussion in the Vietnamese context: overcrowded hospitals, the rise of chronic diseases, exhausted family caregivers, treatment costs becoming a heavy burden, and many poor patients at risk of falling out of treatment not because they lack awareness, but because they lack the conditions to continue.

The book consists of four major parts: the foundation of medical-social diagnosis; the principles of social treatment; medical social work in the Vietnamese context; and practical tools such as assessment forms, case management records, treatment dropout risk checklists, terminology, and references.

This is not only a book for social work students. It is also an invitation to physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, volunteers, patients’ families, and anyone who has ever sat beside a hospital bed to understand that healing does not begin with seeing the disease, but with seeing the human being.

A patient does not carry only a disease. They also carry a family, a job, a debt, a fear, a past, a belief, and sometimes a despair they cannot name.

Behind a Patient is a book about medical social work — where medicine meets family, hospitals meet community, diagnosis meets living conditions, and compassion meets professional method. The book does not view the patient as a number, a hospital bed, or a billing record, but as a whole human being living within a network of economics, labor, psychology, culture, and family relationships.

Inspired by Richard C. Cabot’s classic vision of collaboration between physicians and social workers, Minh Hưng / Nguyễn Đông Hưng places the discussion in the Vietnamese context: overcrowded hospitals, the rise of chronic diseases, exhausted family caregivers, treatment costs becoming a heavy burden, and many poor patients at risk of falling out of treatment not because they lack awareness, but because they lack the conditions to continue.

The book consists of four major parts: the foundation of medical-social diagnosis; the principles of social treatment; medical social work in the Vietnamese context; and practical tools such as assessment forms, case management records, treatment dropout risk checklists, terminology, and references.

This is not only a book for social work students. It is also an invitation to physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, volunteers, patients’ families, and anyone who has ever sat beside a hospital bed to understand that healing does not begin with seeing the disease, but with seeing the human being.

Behind a Patient: Social Work at the Intersection of Medicine, Family, and Community is a work on medical social work in the context of contemporary Vietnam. The book begins with a fundamental question: why, amid increasingly advanced medicine, do many patients still leave the clinic without truly being seen as whole human beings?

Minh Hưng / Nguyễn Đông Hưng approaches patients not only through symptoms, tests, prescriptions, or hospital fees, but through the entire life behind illness: family, work, income, housing, caregivers, fear, belief, loneliness, and the risk of being left behind after treatment. Drawing from the foundational thought of Richard C. Cabot, Mary E. Richmond, and the principles of social medicine, the book shows that medical social work is not a secondary charitable activity, but an essential part of a humane healthcare system.

The book systematically presents key topics: medical-social diagnosis, life history taking, economic assessment, psychological assessment, case management, social treatment, support for poor patients, professional ethics, health communication, post-discharge care, and the role of family, hospitals, primary care, and community in the healing process.

This book is suitable for social work students, hospital social workers, healthcare professionals, hospital administrators, volunteers, patient caregivers, and anyone interested in building a more humane healthcare system. It reminds us that behind a patient there is not only a disease, but a life that needs to be heard, supported, and respected.

Behind a Patient is a specialized work on medical social work in the Vietnamese context, developing medical-social thought from Richard C. Cabot, Mary E. Richmond, and modern foundations of person-centered healthcare. The book emphasizes that illness is not only a biological issue, but is also connected to family, poverty, labor, housing, psychology, belief, ethics of care, and social justice.

The work aims to build a more humane and professional way of seeing patients in Vietnamese hospitals: helping patients not only receive treatment, but also be heard, supported, protected in their dignity, and connected with resources to continue living after illness.