Western State Hospital, Washington Job

[drdss2017]

Has anyone worked for Western State Hospital, Washington? Got a job offer.

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[splik]

I doubt you will get responses by posting here. You are better off speaking to the psychiatrists currently working there, or previously working there to get a sense of things. I don't think they will sugar coat it. I applied there some yrs ago and the CMO at the time who was supposed to be recruiting (no longer there) advised me against working there. I will tell you that it is dangerous and psychiatrists have been seriously hurt by patients there. They used to have psychiatry residents rotate there, but have not for quite some years now as it was deemed too unsafe. These and other things have also meant there is no forensic psychiatry fellowship. Unlike state hospital systems in states like california, WSH has typically had both civil commitment and forensic patients. However the trend is to move civil pts into smaller community based facilities. The upshot of this is that the dangerousness of the population is likely to increase. It is an older asylum building that was not really meant for the kind of patients they get now.

If you are interested in geropsychiatry and you can just work with their geriatric psychiatry patients, that might be a reasonable job.

 

[Username2015]

I’ve heard multiple patients ask to not be sent there. It’s also where some patients have gone when they haven’t been able to be placed anywhere else.

 

[drdss2017]

Thank you. This information is really helpful.

 

[ObsequiousAplomb]

I’ve heard multiple patients ask to not be sent there. It’s also where some patients have gone when they haven’t been able to be placed anywhere else.

I would question any patient who wants to be sent to any state hospital

 

[SeniorWrangler]

Very beautiful grounds! There are many different units and I think you'd need to look carefully at the unit where you'd be working.

 

[smalltownpsych]

My dad used to play softball with the residents there back in the 60s. At least that’s the story he told. When he would talk about it, I always pictured a one flew over the ****oos nest type scenario. No current info on it though So that probably wasn’t much help.