Los Angeles County Department of Human Resources

Work where your clinical judgment can change the course of someone’s life.

Serve people at one of the most vulnerable points in their lives—when serious mental illness, trauma, substance use, homelessness, and justice involvement often intersect. This is hands-on psychiatry with a clear public-service mission and the opportunity to stabilize patients when timely care matters most.

Annual salary: $392,999

Includes 20% recruitment & retention bonus + salary step 7 placement for eligible full-time on-site Correctional Health positions

Medical  Vision  Dental  Life Insurance  Pension/401k/457b

WHY MISSION-DRIVEN PSYCHIATRISTS CHOOSE THIS WORK

• Make an immediate difference: Intake psychiatry can meet patients near the “front door” of the jail system—often after days without medication, during withdrawal, psychosis, or significant destabilization—so treatment can begin as early as possible.

• See psychiatry across the full acuity spectrum: Depending on assignment, you may work with mild-to-moderate needs, highly acute presentations, or patients who have stabilized and need ongoing medication management.

• Stay clinically sharp: Experience complex and sometimes uncommon pathology that psychiatrists may have read about but rarely encounter in routine practice.

• Care for a deeply underserved population: Many patients have long histories of trauma, serious mental illness, substance use, homelessness, and lost family or community support.

WHAT THE JOB ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

• This is a staff psychiatrist role—not an administrative management job. The work is overwhelmingly clinical: evaluating patients, reviewing records, developing treatment plans, prescribing and monitoring medications, charting, and collaborating on care.

• A typical full-time schedule is built around 10-hour shifts with approximately 10 patient visits per shift, with the remaining time available for record review, documentation, orders, court-related work, and care coordination.

• You work as part of a multidisciplinary mental health team with psychologists, social workers, medical staff, and custody partners. Psychiatry leads medication management, but patient care is highly collaborative.

• There is no routine on-call expectation for staff psychiatrists; supervisory physicians handle on-call. When your scheduled workday ends, the goal is for the job to stay at work.

THE ENVIRONMENT — CANDIDLY

• This is a correctional setting. Offices are institutional, work occurs inside secure facilities, and personal electronics generally cannot be carried behind the secure perimeter.

• The work is structured around custody operations and patient movement. Some assignments are more predictable; intake is faster-moving and less defined because patients may arrive acutely ill, intoxicated, withdrawing, or without reliable treatment histories.

• You do not need prior correctional-health experience to bring value. The clinical expectation is that you arrive knowing psychiatry; the team can teach the correctional workflows, systems, and operational environment.

WHO WILL THRIVE HERE

A psychiatrist who is mission-driven and grounded: someone who can recognize the social realities affecting patients, remain focused on the clinical work in front of them, and find meaning in helping a person become safer, more stable, and better connected to care.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS & HOW TO APPLY

Required: Completion of an American Specialty Board-approved psychiatry residency (or recognized equivalent training) and an active, unrestricted California Physician and Surgeon’s Certificate. A valid California Class C Driver License, or alternative transportation method when needed, is also required.

Location: Various correctional facilities throughout Los Angeles County.

(Official payroll title is: Mental Health Psychiatrist).