PMHNP Los Angeles

[pmhnpUpenn]

Hi,

I will be graduating the PMHNP program at Penn in 2016. I was looking for hospitals to do a nurse practitioner residency in Los Angeles. I became aware that LA only has 1 psychiatric department and it is UCLA, and they do not hire NPs.

Is there another large hospital that I could do my residency?

I called cedars and they said that they do not have a psychiatric department.

I'm not sure what that really means, because when I googled cedars psych department there was a relevant link that came up. I'm assuming there is no psych inpatient unit.

Also, is psychiatric NP the wrong route? Is there going to be an eradication of the field/position? And focus more on neurobiology and neuropsychiatry?

Any advice is appreciated.

Best.

[megank5183]

Hi!

I am graduating from my PMHNP program in June and am currently in clinicals. I'm not sure about Penn's program, but at Drexel we can precept with Psych NPs and psychiatrists. I have precepted with one NP and three MDs, so I would search for docs too. Also, do you have any professional connections? All of my preceptors (except the NP who was a cold call) have come through contacts I have made as RN. As for the role, there is definitely opportunity and I think I will really love the job when I graduate. It is pretty specialized, so if you can only work in one location upon graduation, that might be difficult but there are certainly jobs in CA. I am pretty open to relocating after graduation, so I am pretty confident that I will find employment when I am done. GL!

[harmonizer]

You need to relocate to find jobs. It's harder to find a good paying job now. There are jobs but the pay sucks. There are more of us out there now. The more rural the area is, the better the pay and working environment. From what I heard, the pay in CA is lower than surrounding states despite higher taxes and cost of living due to lack of autonomy of NPs. Due to lack of autonomy, NPs, regardless of specialties, will compete equally with generalist PAs for positions, limiting jobs opportunities. If you are looking to go to less developed but independent states like OR, Idaho, you might get a job.

[natem137]

I'm a psych nurse in LA. There are no NP residencys here that I've heard of at all. As for the hospitals that have a psych department there are actually several: USC county, olive view, Glendale Adventist, UCLA, Loma Linda, and Kaiser. There are also a lot of free standing psychiatric hospitals not attached to a medical hospital. Lastly there is a lot of out patient psychiatric programs, the most predominant is Didi Hirsch. As for psych NP's there are not very many. NPs in CA are basically used as physician extenders, like harmonizer mentioned there is very little anotonmy. We have one NP in our department and even the other nurses keep calling her a PA.

I'm not trying to tell you not to do it just be aware of what you're getting into.