Join our practice
PSYCHIATRIC NURSE PRACTITIONER
part-time to full-time
California-license
Seeking a psychiatric nurse practitioner who is committed to providing excellent care, and is interested in learning, developing clinical skills, and mentorship. Our leader is a double board-certified psychiatrist and family medicine physician with a strong commitment to teaching and mentorship. Early career clinicians are welcome to apply.
The practice settings for which we are currently seeking a clinician:
- Private Practice (San Luis Obispo California)
- Native American Health Clinic (Bishop California)
- Rural Health Clinic (Bishop California)
The ideal candidate will live in San Luis Obispo, or BIshop California, and be able to see patients in-person in an office/clinic setting. This is not a requirement, however – working remotely is an option as long as you are licensed in California.
You should have excellent interpersonal skills, enjoy connecting with colleagues, and love working in a collaborative style with patients.
Akalin Psychiatric Care and Consultation is a small psychiatric practice engaged in serving people with mental health problems across a range of clinical settings and populations. Our core values are clinical excellence, collaboration with colleagues, lifelong learning, and careful attention to the patient-clinician relationship. Our approach emphasizes thinking beyond the biomedical model and medication solutions. We seek to understand our patients' values and help guide them toward living a life they find meaningful. Brief psychotherapy is part of what we attend to at every visit.
About me (Dr Murat Akalin):
I am double-boarded in psychiatry and family medicine and have been out of residency 17 years now. I practice psychiatry almost exclusively at this point, with a little volunteer family medicine work. I have an excellent psychiatric nurse practitioner that works in the practice part-time, a few hours per week. My wife is a psychologist, who works part-time seeing mostly couples and some individuals, and oversees the financials and global operations of the practice. We also have an excellent office manager, with over 15 years experience in managing a psychiatry practice.
I am committed to providing excellent care to my patients. My approach is person-centered, existential and humanistic. I meet people where they are, place great importance on their autonomy, but do not shy away from giving heartfelt, connected and authentic recommendations on what I think would be helpful for them. I have training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and other cognitive-behavioral approaches, and I weave this into my work with patients. I spend time on helping people move toward behavioral change. Addictions are part of what people come to us with. I like working on addictions, and I do not screen these people out from my practice.
With regard to medications, I start with evidence-based practice, but with refractory or severe cases, I am willing to try things for which there is less evidence. I am generally cautious with new medications. I am reluctant to use atypical antipsychotics for conditions other than bipolar or schizophrenia. I am decidedly non-dogmatic. I understand the risks of benzodiazepines, but use them when needed as well. I advocate “de-prescribing” when this makes sense, and like to help people taper off medication, to discover what the medication is doing for them, or not.
I enjoy teaching, and I am passionate about learning. The learning never stops for me. Every patient has something to teach us, if we can slow down to notice. My goal in mentoring is to help you maximize your own potential, manage your own learning, improve your performance and become the clinician you want to be.
Work-life balance is important to me, and I enjoy riding our horses, and working outdoors on our little ranch, spending time with friends, and surfing, hiking and snowboarding.