California Code, Welfare and Institutions Code - WIC § 4308

(a) If a vacancy occurs in a hospital under the jurisdiction of the Director of State Hospitals, the Director of State Hospitals shall appoint, as provided in Section 4301, a hospital administrator, a hospital director, and program directors.

(b) A hospital administrator shall be selected based on their overall knowledge of the hospital and the operation of its administrative, business, and life-support functions and shall have had experience in this area.

(c) The hospital director shall be selected based on their overall knowledge of the hospital, its programs, and its relationship to its community, and on their demonstrated abilities to administer a large facility.

(d) The standards for the professional qualifications of a program director shall be established by the Director of State Hospitals for each patient program. The Director of State Hospitals shall not adopt regulations that prohibit a licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric technician, or clinical social worker from employment in a patient program in any professional, administrative, or technical position. However, the program director of a medical-surgical unit shall be a licensed physician.

(e) If the program director is not a physician, a physician shall be available to assume responsibility for all those acts of diagnosis, treatment, or prescribing or ordering of drugs that may only be performed by a licensed physician.