Episode 41: Dr. Mark Komrad, MD

Ethics and Culture Cast

Dr. Komrad is a psychiatrist on the teaching faculty of Johns Hopkins and Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland and Tulane. He earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics at Yale University, his M.D. degree at Duke Medical School, and trained in internal medicine and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He was an attending psychiatrist on the Treatment Resistant Psychotic Disorders Unit at Sheppard Pratt Hospital for 15 years, where he continues to train residents in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.

In addition to clinical psychiatry, Dr. Komrad is a medical ethicist. He chaired the Ethics Committee and ethics consultation service for the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Maryland for over 25 years. He served on the Ethics Committee of the American Psychiatric Association for 6 years, which oversees ethics and professionalism for psychiatry in the U.S. Recently he has been speaking throughout the U.S. and internationally, also consulting to government policy makers, expressing ethical concerns related to physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, especially concern that these procedures are available to people with mental illness in some countries. He speaks widely about why legalizing these procedures is neither good social policy nor good medical ethics.

Special Guest: Mark Komrad, MD.

Links:

• Dr. Mark Komrad, MD homepage
• Video: Physician-Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia for Non-Terminal Patients with Mental Disorders: An Emerging Ethical Crisis — Talk delivered at St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN
• You Need Help: A Step-by-Step Guide to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling — Just about everyone knows a relative, friend, or coworker who is exhibiting signs of emotional or behavioral turmoil. Yet figuring out how to reach out to that person can feel insurmountable. We know it is the right thing to do, yet many of us hesitate to take action out of fear of conflict, hurt feelings, or damaging the relationship. Through a rich combination of user-friendly tools and real-life stories, Mark S. Komrad, MD, offers step-by-step guidance and support as you take the courageous step of helping a friend who might not even recognize that he or she is in need. He guides you in developing a strong course of action, starting by determining when professional help is needed, then moves you through the steps of picking the right time, making the first approach, gathering allies, selecting the right professional, and supporting friends or relatives as they go through the necessary therapeutic process to resolve their problems.
• Theme Song: "I Dunno" by grapes — I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque