Promoting research in forensic psychiatry.

The credibility and recognition of any specialty is based to a great extent on its research foundation.2 Research helps to reveal answers to the basic ques tions about a specialty, including the diagnosis and treatment of its patients; the effectiveness and effi ciencyof itseducational, research, and clinical service programs; the number of physicians it should have; and the training and experience required for physi cians to be considered its practitioners. While forensic psychiatry hasa longhistory, it has onlyrecently beenformally recognized by theAmer ican Board of Medical Specialties.3 As a relatively new specialty, forensic psychiatry has very significant research needs.4 Unfortunately, even though the popularity of forensic psychiatry is at an all-time high,5 we are currently in an era when it is very dif ficult to establish a new research agenda in any spe cialty. Medical research has traditionally been funded byacombinationof federal, state,and private resources, aswell asby revenues generated by clinical services.6 New research has often been initiated by shifting resources to pilot projects from existing re search programs or clinical services. Threats cur rentlyexist to the integrityof each of the traditional sources of research funding,7 and any proposed rev enueshifting will likely besubjectto intense scrutiny.