Letters to The Trump Administration: Advice for The FDA

Continuing my Series of Open Letters to Specific People in The Incoming Trump Administration

As a Child and Adolescent psychiatrist, I've often been in the position of having to have conversations nobody wants to have. I've worked in emergency rooms and inpatient psychiatric settings. These are places where conversations are had not because they are voluntary, but, rather, because they are necessary.

Many years back, I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker for the American Academy of Emergency Psychiatry. Physicians are in a very peculiar role in emergency psychiatric settings. We are often in positions in which we have tremendous power and control over others. There are laws in place that limit what we can do—for example, in an emergency, my signature would allow someone to be legally restrained and injected with medicines, even if it was against that person's will. The caveat, of course, is that our ability to use force upon someone else is premised on acting in their best interest. Simply put, I don't get to shoot someone up with meds because I want it or beca…