Psychiatric News: Discuss Patient Suicide Before Inevitable Occurs

Mark Moran

Suicide is an occupational hazard of psychiatry. Residency directors should prepare their trainees for what can be a devastating trauma when a patient being treated in the program kills himself or herself, said Eric Plakun, M.D., and Jane Tillman, Ph.D., during a workshop at the annual meeting of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT) last month in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And though lawyers are liable to advise silence in the aftermath of a suicide, training directors need to devise a way for trainees and faculty to discuss the trauma.

Reprinted with permission from the Psychiatric News, Copyright (2007). American Psychiatric Association.

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