Expanding and Sustaining the Psychiatric Workforce

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

In response to the increasing nationwide and local shortage of psychiatrists, the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health has redoubled our efforts to expand and sustain our own psychiatric workforce. Consistent with our focus on the “cradle to career” pathway, we expanded our collaboration with local medical schools and residency programs. This change resulted in an increase of 73% of medical students choosing to do their psychiatry rotation in our community mental health centers over the past three years. Furthermore, DBH has been able to hire 12 psychiatry residents since 2012 from our two local psychiatry residency training programs and will be hiring three more upon their graduation in June 2017. Our recruitment efforts have also been bolstered by our ability, for the first time within the county, to develop a competitive pay structure for the psychiatrists. Since we are in an underserved area, the Department has also been able to provide the Mental Health Loan Assumption Program and the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program (LRP) for the new psychiatry resident graduates. These repayment programs are invaluable in helping defray medical school debt, which is now up to an average between $250,000 - $400,000.