Saturday, January 26, 2008

Psychiatrist ordered to Mental Hospital after blaming Ritalin for School Violence in Court Cases.

Not sure where to go on this one. Sounds like she is getting into trouble for upsetting the status quo. From the Sydney Morning Herald

A psychiatrist known as a "hired gun" in court cases has been ordered into treatment by medical authorities after being accused of a dubious diagnosis.

Yolande Lucire has been reprimanded by the NSW Medical Board after its professional standards committee disagreed with a diagnosis she made in a medico-legal case and questioned her professionalism.

The eastern suburbs forensic psychiatrist is well-known in legal circles and her testimony in a criminal trial last year sparked a NSW judge to slam doctors for creating a generation of "Ritalin kids", who were now committing violent crimes.

Dr Lucire said she could not defend herself because of a non-disclosure order, but said the matter "did not relate to patient care". She can continue to practise.

Dr Lucire suggested her controversial stance on the links between the antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and suicide meant some in the psychiatric fraternity questioned her ability.

Dr Lucire, who is the partner of former federal Labor senator and former president of the Evatt Foundation Bruce Childs, charges upwards of $500 to be an expert witness in criminal and civil cases.

The medical board took issue with her diagnosis of residual organic hallucinosis in a patient and she was ordered to see a board-approved senior psychiatrist "for the purpose of seeking and taking advice with a view to improving some aspects of her practice of medicine".

She said she would comply. Dr Lucire has more than 30 years' experience in psychiatry, including lecturing in universities and 12 years as a forensic consultant at Long Bay prison hospital.

In the trial of a 20-year-old man on assault and indecency charges last April, Judge Paul Conlon relied on Dr Lucire's testimony that the accused showed characteristics of borderline personality disorder when he was taken off an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug at 16 after a decade on it.

His judgement, which made the links between the drugs and violent young offenders, caused controversy.

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