psych nursing in LA

[mf04dalb, BSN, EMT-B]

hi! I’m planning on moving to LA after I finish up my one year of experience as a psych RN in nyc and I’m not too familiar with the landscape, only what I’ve read on here and researched online.

I am looking for insight as to which hospitals in the los angeles area have inpatient psych units? I know of the state hospitals as well as kaiser and UCLA, am I missing any? much appreciated!

[lilRN16, ASN, BSN, RN]

Hey there. Only one Kaiser has a mental health unit and the organization is not well respected in psych. There are only 6577~ beds in all of California, so the more prestigious facilities are hard to get into (UCLA, UCI). There are several other private psych facilities. I suggest you check indeed for facilities you are interested in.

There are also facilities that take voluntary patients, but personally I wouldn't encourage working at those. 

Good luck~

 

[boogie_girl, BSN, RN]

Hello. Some of the other hospitals you can try are White Memorial, Adventist Health Glendale, Glendale Memorial, Huntington Hospital, St. Francis (Lynwood) and several others. You can try County (Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange I am not sure if they have a hospital other than UCI) or VA but the hiring process takes a while because they’re government facilities and they need to do clearances. But I personally would not recommend this route if you haven’t established yourself in the area yet since the process takes time.

The freestanding psych hospitals (Aurora, UHS facilities, College Hospital, etc) in the area seem to always be hiring. I wouldn’t encourage working at those either but they are a good place to start if you want to get established in Psych. I haven’t worked at one in a while so it would be best to research online. It also depends on where you plan to live also because you have to consider commute times and driving in traffic (if you are planning to have a car). If you plan to take public transport, you have to consider that too. 

[lilRN16, ASN, BSN, RN]

Free standing psych facilities not on a hospital license have no ratios... 

Also try not to work non LPS facilities...

[MEDFET, CNA]

Personally depends on what your looking for if you wanna try a small community hospital like Cedars Sinia marina del Rey not George Burns in Beverly Hills that’s more for those type patients who don’t wait in the ER Direct Admit ect. There are a sizeable amount of hospitals who deal with mental health and have special trained units to put patients in isolation coming off narcotics some even use restraints although that’s another issue CA is a big territory and if you wanna see action like no other come to downtown LA where you can help people deserving wounded warriors vets homeless even still see a star or two as many donate there time and money to worthy cause. Only advice is to be open minded not judge because it’s a lot of broken people from some terrible life experiences who are lost and in disparity some could have been on top of the best in the best but fell off from emotional death ptsd or trauma from religious survivor the list goes on and on it will never be a dull moment and I never feel fear because I don’t look at them like zombies but humans who are in a place trying to get out the gutter much like the tenderloin in Frisco. But if that’s too scary or violate the hospitals and skilled nursing homes house enough of the people who are mental health patients to get the experience your seeking