One of my classmate's father is a prison psychiatrist here in California, and he said it was nearly impossible to get your foot in the door. Can anyone confirm this?
How hard is it to get into prison psych?
- Thread starter tehdude
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Well where I am it wouldn't be hard. The local jail needs one. The problem with prison psychiatry (and I rarely see many people wanting to go into it) is it's not like you can just do it anywhere. There has to be a prison and there isn't one on every block! While there is a shortage of psychiatrists, there's so few prisons around that once they get one (or a few) they won't need many others. Then when they lose that one, they won't be able to find another one even though one may be willing to work for them.
Prisons aren't exactly well-connected with the medical world. Just like in forensic psychiatry, where lawyers and judges don't know how to get a psychiatrist, so too do many prisons not know how to get a hold of one. Kinda like a blind guy willing to pay $1000 for a cup of water, and a guy selling water right across the street but the two don't know how to connect with each other.
I don't know if you are specifically just referring to the California system, but starting a few years ago, they allegedly greatly ramped up the pay to psychiatrists to 190K+ a year with a likelihood of making more than that (now this is based off my memory and me hearing this from several sources but never getting confirmation so take what I wrote with a grain of salt, and anyone here please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).
Prisons aren't exactly well-connected with the medical world. Just like in forensic psychiatry, where lawyers and judges don't know how to get a psychiatrist, so too do many prisons not know how to get a hold of one. Kinda like a blind guy willing to pay $1000 for a cup of water, and a guy selling water right across the street but the two don't know how to connect with each other.
I don't know if you are specifically just referring to the California system, but starting a few years ago, they allegedly greatly ramped up the pay to psychiatrists to 190K+ a year with a likelihood of making more than that (now this is based off my memory and me hearing this from several sources but never getting confirmation so take what I wrote with a grain of salt, and anyone here please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).
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Is the water vendor also blind?
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Well for all intents and purposes...yes.
I left a gig with the local Court that paid about $200+ per hour, it was easy work, and they haven't been able to find anyone to take my place. They are desperate because in this county you can't involuntarily commit someone without a court doctor evaluating them. I can realistically see the court raising the pay much higher to get one and they don't know how to get the word out to all the psychiatrists in town for help. It also was a pretty sexy job. I was able to rub elbows with a lot of judges, lawyers, police officers, and one of the defense attorneys I regularly locked horns with is a famous politician that retired to private practice of law. The guy game to my psychiatric unit a few days ago and we had a laugh that now we can work together instead of against each other (in forensic psychiatry you become like a lawyer in that sense, one day the lawyer's cross-examining you till you're red-faced, then afterwards you can have a drink with him).
And most psychiatrists don't even know this gig is available. One of the forensic fellows is trying to get this as a moonlighting gig. It's all about connections.
I left a gig with the local Court that paid about $200+ per hour, it was easy work, and they haven't been able to find anyone to take my place. They are desperate because in this county you can't involuntarily commit someone without a court doctor evaluating them. I can realistically see the court raising the pay much higher to get one and they don't know how to get the word out to all the psychiatrists in town for help. It also was a pretty sexy job. I was able to rub elbows with a lot of judges, lawyers, police officers, and one of the defense attorneys I regularly locked horns with is a famous politician that retired to private practice of law. The guy game to my psychiatric unit a few days ago and we had a laugh that now we can work together instead of against each other (in forensic psychiatry you become like a lawyer in that sense, one day the lawyer's cross-examining you till you're red-faced, then afterwards you can have a drink with him).
And most psychiatrists don't even know this gig is available. One of the forensic fellows is trying to get this as a moonlighting gig. It's all about connections.
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It depends. I did a rotation with a psychiatrist at the va/ucla. Basically psychiatrist were getting paid about 125k in the prison. Some rule went into effect in ca that effectively doubled it. Rarely in any field of medicine do you see a salary double without 4x the amount of work 🙂 this has created some competition. I asked him the same question and he said its tough to jump out if residency into a track like that. After experience and gaining connections it is easier. Aka become friends with people in the legal system.
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Rather than purchasing knee pads, why don't you just start a private practice?
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It may depend on the prison, but I was offered a position right out of residency, as a contractor (meaning not employed directly by the prison). Didn't seem hard at all, and the contracting agency had openings all over the state.
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Care to post the contractor or leave a PM to the original poster? If the original poster is in California, it could give him or her a big lead as to where to start looking.
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I did some locum tenens work in the Alabama prison system a few yrs ago.
I believe psych prison jobs are still avail in alabama
I believe psych prison jobs are still avail in alabama
