America's teaching hospitals are facing an unprecedented financial crisis that could leave more than one-third of the most respected institutions operating at a loss within the next five years, according to leaders in academic medicine. In addition to reducing their traditional educational programs, teaching hospitals may have to eliminate a wide variety of community health projects, poison control centers, safety programs and indigent care programs if budget cuts imposed by third-party payers are not reversed.

As traditional unions successfully expand the ranks of organized physician employees, and as the U.S. Congress considers an antitrust exemption so that all doctors can collectively bargain, the American Medical Association decided to unionize. Doing nothing would have been tantamount to leaving the bargaining table even before the negotiations began.

Present-day psychiatry has fallen into crisis because of the severe limitations of its conception of the person and, as a result, its conception of the patient. It objectifies the patient in a number of ways. Because of this reductionism, psychiatry fails to distinguish between healthy and pathological features of human life. It fails to consider adequately the psychological and social factors that cause and maintain each patient's problems.

The Hotseat - Poetry of the Times

The most common psychiatric sequelae following trauma include major depressive disorder, somatoform pain disorder, adjustment disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In law, trauma that precipitates PTSD is viewed as a tort, which stems from the root word "torquere" (to twist), as does the word torture. In a sense, plaintiffs do allege torture in personal injury cases. A tort constitutes a civil or private wrong, as opposed to a criminal wrong, and rests on the general principle that every act of a person causing damage to a legally protected interest of another obliges that person, if at fault, to repair the damage (Slovenko, 1973).

With less than five months before an irrevocable and unavoidable deadline, major questions still remain about the ability of the health care industry to cope with the so-called Y2K problem

Psychological testimony is required in more than half the civil trials that unfold each year in the nation's courtrooms, and it is a rare criminal case that doesn't include a psychiatric evaluation during some stage of the proceedings. Yet despite the significant number of interactions between lawyers and forensic psychiatric experts that occur daily, there is still a fault line that separates them.

It is relatively recent that boundary issues in clinical practice have attained professional awareness, although some early concepts portended the issue. Several decades ago, for example, the term boundary violations referred almost exclusively to what we now term sexual misconduct.

Schizophrenic patients treated with olanzapine (Zyprexa) required less health care services and incurred less overall health care costs over a 28-week period than patients treated with risperidone (Risperdal). This was the result of a study presented by Eli Lilly and Company researchers at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology meeting held in Paris from Oct. 31, 1998 to Nov. 4, 1998.