Mental Illness in the Cockpit

by Mark Levy MD Medical Director fpamed The New York Times lead article on Sunday April 19, 2015 was headlined “Germanwings Crash Exposes History of Denial of Risk of Pilot Suicide” Germanwings Crash Expose…t Suicide – NYTimes What is most shocking among the revelations contained in this article is that there have been rare but […]

Relying on Self-reported Emotional Impairment by Pilots is Inadequate Risk Assessment

Charles Saldanha, MD Forensic Psychiatrist Asst. Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, UCSF That the co-pilot at the controls of the Germanwings airliner did not fully disclose his mental health condition is tragic, but not surprising. The current reliance on self-report of mental health diagnoses and treatment is likely to generate many false negatives. People with mental health […]

Co-pilot in Germanwings Crash Alleged to Have Hidden Mental Illness from Employer

Mark I Levy MD Forensic Psychiatrist Medical Director Forensic Psychiatric Associates, LP Asst. Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, UCSF School of Medicine According to a March 28, 2015 article in the New York Times, the co-pilot who locked the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed a German Wings aircraft flying from Spain to Germany, killing […]

Warning: Antidepressants May Cause Bank Robbery

This article, written by forensic psychiatrist James L. Knoll, IV MD, and published in Psychiatric Times volume 30 November 2013, makes a significant contribution, through tongue in check, to laying to rest the false conclusion that antidepressant medication in general and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in particular cause aggressive behavior or even suicide. He […]

Is This “Parity” for Mental Health Coverage? Shortage of Psychiatric Beds Preceded State Senator’s Stabbing

Is discharging an acutely disturbed young man to the street, because there were insufficient beds in Western Virginia, “parity” for psychiatric illness treatment under the law? Would a hospital emergency room release to the street someone who came in with a life-threatening medical condition, say a heart attack? Yet this is done routinely with emergency […]

How Did Aaron Alexis Get a Security Clearance?

Comment by Mark Levy MD forensic psychiatrist & Medical Director at Forensic Psychiatric Associates, LP This is an excellent, comprehensive and balanced review of the behavioral issues pertaining to security clearance and how many of these were either missed or overlooked in the case of Aaron Alexis.One point I would add as a forensic psychiatrist […]

The Bubonic Plague and the Gunman and His 12 Victims Shot and Killed at the D.C. Navy Yard

According to the New York Times, 34 year old heavily armed Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 people working at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard this morning, injuring others. As will happen once again, national hand-wringing ritual follows, trying to make “sense out” of the irrational. Pundits, including psychiatrists, will be asked to speculate on […]

The Intricate Link Between Violence and Mental Disorder – Eric B. Elbogen, PhD; Sally C. Johnson, MD

Vol. 66 No. 2, February 2009   Archives  •  Online Features Original Article  This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article […]

Violence Risk Assessment by David Y. Kan, MD

To assist with his teaching of psychiatric residents at UCSF School of Medicine, Dr. Kan has prepared the following PowerPoint slide show summarizing many key aspects of violence risk assessment, a critical forensic psychiatric skill. Download David Kan MD Violence Risk Assessment Psych interns 2-5-07

Stalkers: Violence Risk Assessment by David Y. Kan, MD

Dr. David Kan, a forensic psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Ft. Miley VA Medical Center, University of California , San Francisco, created this PowerPoint slide presentation on Risk Assessment of Stalkers for a talk he gave on 11-17-04. To download a pdf version of Dr. Kan’s PowerPoint presentation, click here: Download Stalker_Talk_11-17-04.pdf