Paul Stuart Appelbaum

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

Appelbaum has been Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law, and Director, Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons since 2006. Appelbaum was President of the American Psychiatric Association (2002-2003) and President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (1995-1996).

Appelbaum is a member of the Standing Committee on Ethics of the World Psychiatric Association, and Chair of the APA's DSM Steering Committee. He was the Fritz Redlich Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; he was given the Isaac Ray Award of the American Psychiatric Association for "outstanding contributions to forensic psychiatry and the psychiatric aspects of jurisprudence." Appelbaum has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences,

Education and early career 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. During his medical residency, Appelbaum studied as a special student at Harvard Law School. He describes his legal training as of "critical importance to my later career development." the understanding of the influence of law on psychiatry, and the prediction of dangerousness 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.

He developed a theory of ethics for forensic psychiatry.

Since moving to Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons in 2006, Appelbaum has focused on the medical, ethical and legal aspects of human genetic research. He leads the Center for Research on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic and Behavioral Genetics.

Appelbaum is a frequent media commentator on medical issues.

The New York Times describes him as "a professor of psychiatry at Columbia who has published widely on medical ethics and the law."

Awards, honors, memberships Four of Appelbaum's books have received the Manfred Guttmacher Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Appelbaum became President of the American Psychiatric Association in May 2002. He was President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. He has twice chaired the Council on Psychiatry and Law, and the Commission on Judicial Action for the American Psychiatric Association, and served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Networks on Mental Health and the Law and on Mandated Community Treatment. He has received the Isaac Ray Award of the American Psychiatric Association for ‘outstanding contributions to forensic psychiatry and the psychiatric aspects of jurisprudence’. He is married to Diana Muir Appelbaum; they have three adult children, Binyamin Appelbaum; Yoni Appelbaum; and Avigail Appelbaum and belong to Congregation Ramath Orah in Manhattan.

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.