Dr. Ashley VanDercar graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. She then attended Florida International University, where she obtained a Juris Doctorate. Following several years working in the healthcare field as an attorney and risk manager, she enrolled in medical school at the University of Miami. After graduation, she moved to Cleveland for postgraduate training, including the Case Western Reserve University Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry. She is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry, with a certification in the subspecialty of Forensic Psychiatry.

Dr. VanDercar currently leads an inpatient competence to stand trial evaluation and restoration unit for the State of Ohio, at Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare. In this capacity, she has written over 100 court reports and testified more than 25 times. She supervises forensic psychiatry fellows and provides training to rotating medical students and psychiatry residents. She also lectures for the Cleveland Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Training and serves as a senior lecturer at the University of Akron Law School.

Dr. VanDercar is a member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL). In 2019 she was awarded AAPL’s prestigious Rappeport Fellowship. She was also a Cotswold-Looney Fellow for the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry from 2019 to 2020.

Dr. VanDercar has published on a variety of topics, including organizational psychiatry, psychiatric malpractice, the insanity defense, cults, and terrorism. She has presented at local and national conferences, on topics such as civil commitment, peer review, malpractice, and expert witness testimony.

Dr. VanDercar has been an independent contractor to fpamed since 2023.

References available upon request.