Posts Tagged: psychiatrists

Big Problem: California’s Behavioral Health Worker Shortage

Graphic representation of Mental Health Disorder. Image via Shutterstock

by CAPITOL WEEKLY STAFF posted 02.27.2023

CAPITOL WEEKLY  PODCAST: We’re joined today by Dr. Janet Coffman of Healthforce Center at UCSF, and Michelle Doty Cabrera, Executive Director of CBHDA. They describe the serious challenges facing the state’s mental health and substance abuse programs, and what is needed to grow and retain a behavioral health workforce that reflects California’s diverse populations.

An effort to give ER doctors unfettered power 

The entrance to a hospital emergency room. (Photo: Johnson Photography, via Shutterstock)

by MILTON LORIG posted 06.16.2016

OPINION: Our California Legislature is considering a bill — AB 1300 by Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles — that would allow emergency room (ER) physicians to release psychiatric patients brought into their ER’s on a psychiatric detention, known as a “5150”, without any input from a psychiatrist. Currently, when a patient in psychiatric crisis is brought to an ER on a “5150”, the hospital discharges the patient to a psychiatric facility where that patient receives a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation.