PRMS Continues Longstanding Support of the Guttmacher Award

PRMS has a long history of supporting mental health organizations, initiatives and the mental health community.  Since the early 1990s, PRMS has endowed the prestigious Manfred S. Guttmacher Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to forensic psychiatry literature.

The 2016 Guttmacher Award was presented on May 15 during the APA Annual Meeting in Atlanta. The recipients of the Guttmacher Award are Robert Trestman, MD, PhD, Kenneth Appelbaum, MD and Jeffrey Metzner, MD in recognition of co-editing the Oxford Textbook of Correctional Psychiatry (Oxford University Press, 2015).  The book is considered to be the first comprehensive textbook about correctional psychiatry, an evolving field that many say has not been focused on in literature. Charles David Cash, JD, LLM, ARM, Assistant Vice President of Risk Management for PRMS, was on hand during the presentation of the plaque and honorarium.

Trestman is a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at the University of Connecticut where he heads UConn Health Correctional Managed Health Care. Appelbaum is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Director of Correctional Mental Health Policy and Research at Commonwealth Medicine. Metzner is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Designed to help address the overwhelming number of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system, the book highlights the plight of people with mental illness in the nation’s prisons and jails. Its co-editors say there is much more work to be done to expand research and the evidence base for psychiatric work in corrections. Opportunities for rehabilitation and raising mental healthcare standards in correctional facilities also need to be improved.

The book gives readers at all stages of their careers practical information to face common clinical, organizational, and ethical challenges. Among other things, it covers management issues, emergencies, psychopharmacology, suicide risk management, addictions treatment, aggression, self-injury, and other behavioral challenges. It also addresses unique assessment and treatment needs of many distinct population groups, forensics, psychological testing, sexual assaults and quality improvement.

“I was thrilled to be able to contribute to a chapter in this book,” said Donna Vanderpool, MBA, JD, Vice President of Risk Management.  “Providing psychiatric services in correctional settings presents unique liability risks, so I was very grateful for the opportunity to address those risks.”

The Guttmacher Award dates to 1975 and honors the late Manfred Guttmacher, MD, who served for 36 years as a forensic psychiatrist and chief medical adviser to the Supreme Bench of Baltimore. The award is co-sponsored by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It recognizes original works presented or published in the previous year.

For more information on the Oxford Textbook of Correctional Psychiatry, click here. For more information about the Guttmacher Award, click here.