Regular readers know that every year I tweet and blog from the conference of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law. This group of forensic psychiatrists consists of about 1800 of the country’s practitioners. Topics are quite diverse and sometimes rather unusual. It’s a lot of fun. Here’s just a small smattering of factoids I picked up last week:
The “sovereign citizen” defense can prompt a competency eval, but is not a delusion. The sovereign citizen movement is a recognized subculture of people who believe the government has no jurisdiction over them.
Of 200 defendants cleared by DNA, one-fourth had confessed to the crime.
According to FBI uniform crime reports, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
Sideways Shrink posed a great question recently in a comment on my post “When A Thick Skin Helps.” The question was whether or not physicians are allowed to hit a patient who tries to assault them.
Certainly, physical assaults on patients are not the standard of practice in psychiatry or any other medical specialty. Psychiatrists do undergo some training about physical management of violent patients: I remember in residency we had to get trained in “take down” and restraint procedures. As a group we practiced applying pressure point joint locks on each other in order to make a patient break a grip on us, and to do two person restraints to hold someone immobile until security could arrive. None of this involved any “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”-type kung fu moves, there was no kicking or hitting or loud kiai karate yells. There was a lot of talk about the importance of being as least forceful as possible. Frankly, I’m not sure how much of that I would have remembered if I had ever been in a position to have to use it. The few times when I was actually assaulted by patients the incidents happened so fast there really wasn’t anything I could have done. (OK, so the little manic lady who hit me with a stuffed dog really couldn’t count as an assault, and she was already restrained in a geri-chair to begin with.)
But the real question is: will a doctor get into trouble for defending him or herself? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
When reports arrived that accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner had opened fire in Tucson, Arizona on January 7, journalistic first responders linked the incident to the fierceness of political rhetoric in the United States. Upon reflection, some of the discussion has turned to questions about mental illness, guns, and violence.
And plenty of reflection is required, because the connections are not at all simple. To get a sense of just how complicated they are, we invite you to read the lead article in this month’s Harvard Mental Health Letter entitled, “Mental Illness and Violence.” Strangely (for us) it was prepared for publication a month before the tragedy in Tucson. In light of the shooting, we are making the article available to non-subscribers.
I am not surprised at the outrage expressed in the news or at the impulse to blame. A quick scan of the news, however, shows there is not much agreement about whom to blame. In addition to the alleged perpetrator, one can find explicit and implicit criticisms of politicians for playing to our baser instincts; of media figures, various men and women of zeal, for their disingenuous or manipulative partisanship; of the various community bystanders (police, teachers, doctors, family members, neighbors, friends), whom we imagine could have intervened to prevent tragedy.
The political debate flowing from this incident will continue, as will the endless cycle of blame and defensiveness. But I caution all of us — and especially mental health professionals — not to make clinical judgments about Mr. Loughner. Very few people will or should have access to the kind of information that would allow such judgments. From a public health perspective, however, we should make careful judgments about policies that could reduce risk. Read more »
Like most of you, I’m continuing to watch the events unfold in Iran via Twitter and YouTube. Not surprisingly, given the escalating violence, doctors and nurses are caught in the crossfire. This video was posted on YouTube on June 16th. One woman who I’m guessing is a nurse is showing a sign that says that 8 people were martyred. Toward the end of the clip the young man (whose voice breaks down many times) is saying that he witnessed the brutal beating of women and children. He speculates that the attackers were Lebanese Hezbollah. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish.
This story really upset me because I work with medical students at UGH (Undisclosed Government Hospital), and because I have children who are the same age as these victims. The eye witnesses reports come from medical students who hid when Iranian militia and police raided a Tehran University dormitory in the middle of the night. Hat tip to Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post. As we witness history, we will continue to witness the murder of innocent people.
“At the same time, Iran’s Interior Ministry ordered a probe into an attack late Sunday night on Tehran University students in a dormitory reported to have left several students dead and many more injured or arrested. Students say it was carried out by Islamic militia and police. Iran’s English-language Press TV said the ministry urged Tehran’s governor’s office to identify those involved. Iran’s influential speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, condemned the attack.
Students’ Web sites reported mass resignations by Tehran University professors outraged over the incident. One medical student said he and his roommate blocked their door with furniture and hid in the closet when they heard the militia’s motorcycles approaching. He heard the militia breaking down doors, and then screams of anguish as students were dragged from their beds and beaten violently.
When he came out after the militia had left, friends and classmates lay unconscious in dorm rooms and hallways, many with chest wounds from being stabbed or bloody faces from blows to their heads, he said. The staff of the hospital where the wounded students were taken, Hazrat Rasoul Hospital, was so shocked that they went on strike for two hours, standing silently outside the gate in their white medical uniforms.”
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Regular readers know that every year I tweet and blog from the conference of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law. This group of forensic psychiatrists consists of about 1800 of the country’s practitioners. Topics are quite diverse and sometimes rather unusual. It’s a lot of fun. Here’s just a small smattering of factoids I picked up last week:
