To familiarize residents with all aspects of forensic psychiatry, and to prepare them for forensic psychiatric practice, teaching, research, and system consultation. These goals involve objectives in three areas: knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Knowledge
- Develop a working knowledge of the principles and practice of legal dispute resolution in the United States.
- Understand the legal standards and concepts governing civil and criminal forensic psychiatric evaluations.
- Learn the principles and current trends in the legal regulation of psychiatric practice; e.g. civil commitment, confidentiality, liability, duty to third parties, physician/patient relationships, ethics, right to refuse treatment and informed consent.
- Become familiar with the special issues involved with mental health treatment in jail, prisons, maximum-security treatment centers and public sector administration.
- Develop a knowledge base in special areas of psychiatry relevant to forensic evaluation, such as malingering, hypnosis, neuropsychiatric disorders, dissociative disorders, sexual disorders, substance abuse, parental capacity, and others.
- Understand the ethical issues surrounding psychiatric participation in the legal system.
Skills
- Develop expertise in conducting criminal and civil forensic psychiatric evaluations.
- Develop expertise in communication with courts and attorneys, preparing forensic reports, and testifying as an expert witness.
- Develop expertise in teaching and consulting on forensic issues to general psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.
- Develop skills in working with criminal justice populations with mental disorders.
- Develop skills in consulting to governmental bodies regarding public policy concerning psychiatric disorders and the law.
- Develop skills in conducting scholarly research, either empirical or involving review of the legal and/or psychiatric literature.
Attitudes
- Demonstrate attitudes that promote honesty, objectivity, and respect for persons in the practice of forensic psychiatry.
- Demonstrate professionalism in working with mental health workers, courts, attorneys, and public agencies.
- Demonstrate a commitment to the advancement of professional knowledge in forensic psychiatry.
- Demonstrate a commitment to lifelong, self-directed leaning in forensic psychiatry.
- Develop an appreciation for the limits of their own and their profession’s knowledge and skills, a toleration of uncertainty, and a readiness to seek appropriate consultation and education.
Site-Specific Goals
Arkansas State Hospital
- Develop expertise in performing a wide range of forensic psychiatric evaluations on inpatients with a great variety of psychiatric disorders and medico-legal involvements. These include evaluations which concern competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility, suitability for conditional release, civil commitment, right to refuse treatment, violence risk assessment, guardianship, and others.
- Participate in the education of general psychiatry residents and other mental health professionals and students.
- Provide consultation to administration and staff of Arkansas State Hospital on medico-legal issues.
Arkansas Department of Corrections
- Develop skills in the psychiatric evaluation of individuals in a correctional setting. The evaluation process will include diagnosis, assessment of dangerousness to self or others, and assessment as to housing needs within the institution and other dispositional matters.
- Develop expertise in the psychiatric treatment of correctional populations.
- Develop an understanding of the role of correctional mental health care in the mental health-criminal justice process.
- Develop an understanding of the correctional institution as a social system influencing inmate behavior.
Department of Psychiatry, Adult Outpatient Clinic
- Develop expertise in performing a wide range of forensic psychiatric evaluations on outpatient basis.
- Develop expertise in conducting court-appointed forensic psychiatric evaluations.
- Develop expertise in conducting evaluations for the civil bar.