Forensic psychiatrists need to be familiar with the use of posttraumatic stress disorder as a legitimate and proper defense in criminal cases, especially given changes to its classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Movements to deinstitutionalize people with mental illness and to make institutionalization more legally difficult have resulted in a lack of space and resources for the care of those with severe mental illness, and many have ended up in jails and prisons.
Registries of those considered dangerous focus wrongly on those with mental illness, who account for only 4 percent of violent acts committed in the United States.
PSOs are not required to share their data, which limits the ability to achieve a much-needed national perspective. Regardless, the are a step in the right direction.
Lynn Monrouxe, PhD, Malissa Shaw, MSc, PhD, and Charlotte Rees, MEd, PhD
Students’ decision making about ethical dilemmas can be supported via education, faculty development, and structures for reporting professionalism lapses.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(6):568-577. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.6.medu1-1706.