Paul Stuart Appelbaum

Paul Stuart Appelbaum (born 1951) is an American psychiatrist, and an expert on legal and ethical issues in medicine and psychiatry.

Biography

Appelbaum is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College and Harvard Medical School, he completed his residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Division of Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics, Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. [ [http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/bec/staff/appelbaum.html Bioethics - Faculty Associates ] ]

Appelbaum is credited with conceptualizing the idea of the therapeutic misconception in which subjects in medical research studies misunderstand the primary purpose of their contact with the research team as treatment.

Appelbaum has been President of the American Psychiatric Association and of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. He developed a theory of ethics for forensic psychiatry. [Appelbaum PS: A theory of ethics for forensic psychiatry. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 1997; 25:233–247]

His areas of particular expertise include the logic and practice of informed consent, [Appelbaum PS, Lidz CW, Meisel A: Informed Consent: Legal Theory and Clinical Practice. New York, Oxford University Press, 1987] the understanding of the influence of law on psychiatry, [Appelbaum PS, Gutheil TG: Clinical Handbook of Psychiatry and the Law, 2nd ed. Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1991] and the prediction of dangerousness [Monahan J, Steadman H, Silver E, Appelbaum PS, Robbins PC, Mulvey EP, Roth LH, Grisso T, Banks S: Rethinking Risk Assessment: The MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence. New York, Oxford University Press, 2001] so as to better guide psychiatric practice. His original work with Tom Grisso in the assessment of patient competency has had broad influence for research and better treatment of both civil and criminal patients. [ Grisso T, Appelbaum PS: Assessing Competence to Consent to Treatment: A Guide for Physicians and Other Health Professionals. New York, Oxford University Press, 1998]

Appelbaum is a frequent media commentator on medical issues. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/us/19vote.html?pagewanted=print States Face Decisions on Who Is Mentally Fit to Vote - New York Times ] ] [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F00E5D81639F932A15750C0A964948260 Can Mental Patients Say No To Drugs? - New York Times ] ] [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEEDC103EF934A35751C1A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewan Doctors Try a Bold Move Against Schizophrenia - New York Times ] ] [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121401153.html Kaine Seeks to Bolster Mental Health Funding - washingtonpost.com ] ] [ [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-18-state-gun-laws_N.htm States work to close gaps in FBI gun database - USATODAY.com ] ] The New York times describes him as "a professor of psychiatry at Columbia who has published widely on medical ethics and the law." [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/research/04deme.html?ei=5070&en=13afea841a31c6ff&ex=1205211600&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1204602859-kg/qZXd302jPIhCr8sMJQw Antibiotics Questioned in Care at Life’s End - New York Times ] ]

Books

* The Clinical Handbook of Psychiatry and the Law (3rd ed., 2000) with Thomas G. Gutheil.
* Almost a Revolution: Mental Health Law and the Limits of Change (1994).
* Assessing Competence to Consent to Treatment: A Guide for Physicians and Other Healthcare Professionals (1998) with Thomas Grisso.
* Divided Staffs, Divided Selves: A Case Approach to Mental Health Ethics (1987) with Stanley Joel Reiser, Harold J. Bursztajn, and Thomas G. Gutheil.
* Rethinking Risk Assessment (2001) with John Monahan, Henry J. Steadman, Eric Silver, Pamela Clark Robbins, Edward P. Mulvey, Loren H. Roth, Thomas Grisso, and Steven Banks.

References