clinical psychologist

psychiatric technician

environmental inspector

dietary technician

physician

San Francisco Department of Public Health

The SF department of public health is a sprawling city/county bureaucracy where leadership is bloated, disorganized, and alarmingly disconnected from reality. The culture is driven by pressure, fear, and dysfunction. Employees are routinely pushed to meet unrealistic deadlines with minimal support, inadequate resources, and caseloads that no ethical system would consider safe. It takes a toll on both staff morale and the quality of patient care.
Trust is a liability here. Management has a pattern of undercutting employees who try to transfer or move on, creating roadblocks instead of supporting career growth. The environment runs on politics, control, and internal power plays—not genuine public service.
This is an excessively bureaucratic system where racism, favoritism, and toxic leadership behaviors go unchecked. If you're considering working here, understand exactly what you're stepping into.

San Francisco Department of Public Health (January 2014-July 2014)
Volunteer
• Maintained excellence in effectively dealing with a variety of contacts including communicable disease investigators, epidemiologists, laboratory technicians, patients and concerned citizens.
• Responded to high volume of calls effectively and in an exceptional manner.
• Successfully took on challenges and assisted with tasks that went above and beyond the volunteership.
• Successfully participated in team meetings and provided input on improving administrative tasks.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Everyone wants the city job, it's over rated. Pays best in class but too stressful, political and bureaucratic. It is not about the patients, they do not let us providers do our jobs. Unorganized and unethical. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Incompetent or overly ambitious management.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic very  Toxic quite Toxic mostly Toxic Toxic Toxic Extremely Toxic

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Slow or Overwhelming no middle.

SFDPH - specifically, the Family Health Center, in partnership with UCSF Family & Community Medicine - is always trying to implement cutting-edge initiatives so that FHC can deliver quality care to low-income residents of San Francisco. In that sense, it's a dynamic place to work. The main challenge is that because SFDPH is a government agency, there are many layers of administration, bureaucracy, and politics, which can make it difficult to implement quality improvement initiatives.

A typical day consists of ensuring that the Ambulatory Care system is active and fully functional. Working in the Department of Public Health Information Systems Department is a very rewarding place to work for. Focusing on providing excellent patient care to the residents of San Francisco, we work together as a team to provide the applications and system infrastructure that will meet the demands of our hospital, clinics and community health centers.

Your opportunities for growth in other areas is highly respected. As long as you are able to complete the work required, you are able to explore new avenues.

The con is that the work hours or the requests can sometimes be out of scope or may not align with what you expected.

The people are great. Building relationships is extremely important to ensure that you build a strong community that will help you when you are in need and, hopefully, vice versa.

I enjoyed working there. It was a fairly good job
 I worked in the front office so I was the main contact people had when they'd come in if they had an appointment with someone in the department so I had to represent. I had a positive sense of accomplishment at the end of a long, fulfilling day at the office. And the payrate was good - $22.95/hr- back in 2008.

A typical day would include registering patients, collecting payment, and preparing medical charts for physicians prior to patient visits. In addition, translations were made prior to the dissemination of health-related pamphlets. The most enjoyable part of the job was working with a diverse and culturally competent staff and being able to provide affordable services for community members.

Was sad to leave but had a rewarding career with SFDPH.  Had the opportunity to achieve continued educational, personal and professional goals and interests.  The environment was of those that were academically skilled and open-minded to inclusiveness as colleagues and researching peers.  Community Health Projects were very rewarding and valued in the San Francisco City and County and Bay Area.

Poor decisions and terrible Management in my units. It all starts with the Director. Managers are pathalogical liars for the most part from a business standpoint but are at heart good people. They make promises and then backtrack all the time. Unsafe work environment in the Psych units.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Clinical psychologist 2 salaries reported	$134,544 per year
Psychiatric technician 1 salary reported	$86,684 per year
Environmental inspector 3 salaries reported	$144,274 per year
Dietary technician 1 salary reported	$81,016 per year
Physician 2 salaries reported	$276,939 per year

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