I don't get the drift of some of what is called new
legislation here in New York state dealing with a health professionals
legal obligation to report on patients who are potential killers. My
understanding is if you are practicing medicine properly that was always
a given understanding. Whether or not I like the mental health care
policies of Governor Cuomo and President Obama, I admit if a patient
tells me they are planning to try to shoot Cuomo or Obama, I would feel
professionally and ethically obligated to immediately turn that patient
into law enforcement officials, even though I fear the police and FBI
are corrupt. However, it has sadly been my experience that even though
psychiatrists are taught to do proper mental status exams as medical
students, they never do. You are simply supposed to ask a patient if
they are planning to kill anyone when doing a proper mental status exam.
If the patient says yes and that they are not kidding, than clearly you
may be dealing with some type of very serious mental health issue and
you certainly have a serious legal issue at hand. However, if the person
says no and goes out and kills someone anyway, than it is my position
you may very well be dealing with premeditated murder in the first
degree. And of course all of this becomes a really sad and difficult
legal issue for everyone involved if a person who kills people was on
psychiatric drugs at the time, since these drugs really do set off
suicidal and homicidal ideation and intent. And since there are no
biological markers for any of the diagnoses of the psychiatrists, such
disorders as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may not even exist, and
it is questionable whether anyone should ever be put on their poisonous
arsenal of drugs. -Dr Harold Mandel
MandelNews.com
