Curley L. Bonds, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health

Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Charles R. Drew University School of Medicine

Health Sciences Clinical professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and Professor of Psychiatry at CDU

CBonds@dmh.lacounty.gov

Curley L. Bonds, M.D., is a psychiatrist with extensive experience in a variety of clinical, academic and research settings. Most recently, he is the Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Charles R. Drew University School of Medicine (CDU) in Los Angeles and was the Medical Director for Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. Dr. Bonds is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

After completing a B.A. in sociology at Emory University, he earned his M.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in adult psychiatry at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. Bonds remained on the full-time faculty at UCLA from 1996-2005, where he served as the Director of the Consultation and Evaluation Service for the UCLA Center for Health Sciences. In 2005, he was appointed as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at CDU. He holds joint appointments as Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and Professor of Psychiatry at CDU. From 2007-2010 he was a supervising psychiatrist for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health where he was the Director of Quality, Academics, and Research for Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

Dr. Bonds has won numerous teaching and advocacy awards including Chief Resident of the Year in 1996 and The Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in 2009. Dr. Bonds is active with several professional organizations including the American Association of Community Psychiatrists, the National Medical Association, the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, the Black Psychiatrists of America and the American Psychiatric Association. He is the immediate past president of the Southern California Psychiatric Society. His areas of clinical and research expertise include healthcare disparities, cross cultural psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, HIV/AIDS and community based collaborative healthcare.