Adult Inpatient Services

Psychiatric Adult Inpatient Services is located at the Augustus F. Hawkins Mental Center and provided by Los Angeles General Medical Center faculty and staff on five inpatient adult wards. The average daily census is 52 patients. Patients are admitted with a variety of acute psychiatric diagnoses; many have comorbid substance abuse and medical problems. An internist is on site and available for consultation. Acute care and treatment consists of a structured social environment with emphasis on reality reinforcement, psychiatric medication, individual and group psychotherapy, psychological assessment, occupational therapy, recreational therapy and psychiatric social services, including family therapy and discharge planning.

Adult Outpatient Services

The Psychiatric Adult Outpatient Clinic serves the mental health needs of the surrounding communities by providing psychiatric evaluation, psychological evaluation and testing, management, and individual, couples, family and group psychotherapy services. Patients may be self-referred or referred for evaluation by community agencies or from other divisions of the medical center. Follow-up clinics provide aftercare services for chronic mentally ill patients. Approximately 1,000 patients currently receive services at the Adult Outpatient Clinic.

The clinic has bilingual clinicians and support staff available to treat Spanish-speaking patients. Case-management support services are available to help patients arrange housing and financial assistance. Active clinical research programs in the outpatient clinic focus on the treatment of schizophrenic disorders and anxiety disorders.

Child and Adolescent Outpatient Services

Faculty and trainees from USC provide psychiatric care for children and adolescents at both Los Angeles General Medical Center and CHLA. The child and adolescent outpatient psychiatry clinic at Los Angeles General Medical Center provide psychiatric evaluation, medication evaluation, psychological testing, individual and family psychotherapy with or without medication, and cognitive–behavior modification therapy for persons under the age of 18. Approximately 400 children and adolescents currently receive outpatient services. Adolescents with a broad range of problems are served, including those with hyperactivity, family-related problems, developmental disabilities, depression, schizophrenia and school failure as well as victims of abuse or violence. Our faculty and trainees also evaluate young children with developmental and begavorial disorders as part of the Early Childhood Clinic: this is co-located within te Pediatrics outpatient clinic.

CHLA’s UCEDD clinic behavioral health services are described here: http://www.uscucedd.org/what-we-do/clinical-services/behavioral-health-services

Faculty Practice Plan

A wide range of mental health services — including psychiatric evaluations, psychotherapy, medication evaluation and management — and psychological testing are available through the Faculty Practice Plan. The plan provides services to USC students, employees and their family members as well as community members. Clinicians serve on panels of several managed behavioral healthcare firms, making clinical services easily available to patients covered by these plans.

Forensic Psychiatric Service

The Forensic Psychiatric Service is a major resource for Los Angeles County and Southern California, possessing an interdisciplinary team of professionals trained and experienced in the interface of mental health and legal issues. Direct service activities consist of written evaluations for criminal, civil and juvenile dependency/delinquency matters, temporary conservatorship and conservatorships, all of which may include written reports and court appearances. Services also include treatment for mentally disordered offenders. Additionally, the service offers consultations to a wide variety of health and mental health professionals at the Los Angeles General Medical Center. It also provides consultative, educational, and informational services to community care facilities, government agencies, human services, law enforcement, the justice system, mental health agencies, and the community at large.

Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Hospital Psychiatric Consult Service

The Consultation-Liaison psychiatry service at the Keck and Norris hospitals provides comprehensive psychiatric assessments and treatment recommendation for inpatients being treated at either hospital. In addition, liaison programs are provided for specific patient populations, including those with cystic fibrosis or who have undergone solid organ transplant. The service works closely with the hospitals’ social work department to establish and promote an integrative care model of behavioral health. The service is a teaching site for medical students and psychiatry residents, and participates in ongoing clinical research.

Medically Complicated Psychiatric Clinic

Services Offered:

• Comprehensive adult psychiatric consultations for patients with co-occurring psychiatric and medical conditions
• Medication management
• Behavioral health interventions (e.g., relaxation and stress management training)
• Short-term evidenced based psychotherapy (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & Interpersonal Therapy)

 What We Treat:

• Mood disorders
• Anxiety and stress disorders
• Medically unexplained physical symptoms
• Distress due to medical conditions
• Adjustment to acute/chronic illness
• Enhancing motivation for lifestyle change

 Insurances Accepted:

• Medicare, Blue Cross PPO, USC Network Insurance, USC Student Aetna Plan, and cash pay

Treatment Team:

Thomas Garrick, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry

Jonathan Wong, Psy.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor

Go to http://www.keckmedicine.org/psychiatry-and-behavioral-sciences/ for appointments and eligibility.

Psychiatric Adult Consultation and Liaison Services

The Psychiatric Adult Consultation and Liaison Service is comprised of a team of USC faculty and trainees. The service provides consultation assistance to non-psychiatric services at the Los Angeles General Medical Center. This psychiatric service works in concert with medical, surgical, obstetrical, and neurological services to provide care for patients with medical conditions who are suffering from psychiatric symptoms. These psychiatric symptoms either result from a primary psychiatric condition and/or comprise psychiatric manifestations of a medical condition. Common consultation questions include requests for diagnostic evaluations, psychopharmacological recommendations, and assistance with capacity assessments.  The Consultation-Liaison team also assists with management of involuntarily admitted psychiatric patients who are being treated for medical or surgical issues.  The service assesses a wide variety of patients with multiple diagnoses including psychotic, anxiety, mood, cognitive, personality, somatoform, and substance use disorders.  The service operates under the core value that patients with psychiatric conditions should receive a high quality of health care, be it psychiatric, medical, or otherwise.

Child and Adolescent Emergency Psychiatric Service

Faculty and trainees of USC evaluate children and adolescents with psychiatric emergencies at both Los Angeles General Medical Center’s Department of Emergency Medicine and also the emergency room at CHLA. Los Angeles General Medical Center evaluates 1000-1400 children per year for suicidal ideation, aggression, or other psychiatric complaints. Children may be stabilized in the ER in order to go home with outpatient follow-up, or children may be transferred for psychiatric hospitalization.  All efforts are made to include family in the treatment plan and to provide a therapeutic, gentle experience for a child in the emergency room.

Child and Adolescent Consultation Liaison Psychiatry Services

Faculty, staff, and trainees of USC evaluate children and adolescents hospitalized on the inpatient pediatric medical wards at both Los Angeles General Medical Center and CHLA.  Some of these children have both medical and psychiatric disorders, and some children are having trouble tolerating the stress of severe medical illness.

Psychiatric Emergency Services

Psychiatric Emergency Services are provided to patients of all ages 24/7. Voluntary and involuntary psychiatric patients from the community are evaluated, provided with emergency treatment and hospitalized or referred to appropriate services in the community. Patients are brought in by family, friends, police, probation officers and mobile emergency assessment teams, and by ambulance from a number of community agencies and hospitals.

Most of those seen by staff in the Los Angeles General Medical Center Psychiatric Emergency Service are chronic and severely mentally ill patients who reside in the greater central area of Los Angeles. Of the several hundred patients per month seen in the service, one-third are brought in by various police agencies.

Psychiatric Social Work Services

The Division of Psychiatric Social Work provides initial psychiatric assessments for patients in the Inpatient Unit, Psychiatric Adult Outpatient Clinic, and Psychiatric Child and Adolescent Outpatient Clinic. Psychiatric social workers provide a full range of clinical services that includes multiple treatment modalities, such as education for patients and families, psychotherapy, and follow-up information and referrals. Treatment needs and patient abilities are regularly reassessed in order to promote recovery and improve functioning. As appropriate and needed, psychiatric social workers may function as consultants to interdisciplinary staff, schools, probation, courts and other agencies. Psychiatric social workers also provide education to students of various disciplines.

Student Counseling and Mental Health

Counseling and Mental Health programs include individual therapy, group therapy, crisis support, psychiatric services and specialties for gender-based harm. A specialized team in Relationship and Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Services works on relationship/sexual violence prevention education and client services.

For students in distress, individual therapy, crisis support, and psychiatric services are available. Counselors also provide consultation to those who are interested in reaching out to a student in distress.

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