Seymour Pollack and the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry.

Those who knew Seymour Pollack knew that he stood for excellence in whatever he did and that he expected it from others. He was constantly concerned about the competence of those who participated in both teaching forensic psychiatry and testifying in court. Seymour was one of the original ten who participated in discussions which led to the creation of AAPL in 1979. He repeatedly expressed interest in the establishment of some criteria for certifying competence in our field. When AAPL was started, there was lengthy discussion about the possibility of having a separate membership status of Fellow of AAPL for those who met the criteria of many years of experience and, as far as Seymour was concerned, a standard of "excellence" that was to be determined. He suggested examination as a means of qualifying to become a F AAPL because it was believed that AAPL could best carry out its educational goals by maintaining a level of democracy. This concept was rejected because it was feared, understandably, that an elitist image might impede recruitment. Of course, Seymour did not give up easily in his desire to see that there be some method by which specific expertise could be validated. At every meeting of the AAPL Executive Committee, Seymour would speak about the need to adopt standards in order to indicate those who might be more expert than the regular membership. Jonas Rappeport recalls arguing strongly with Seymour on many occasions that this would only be devisive to AAPL and was not the goal of AAPL. That is, AAPL was not a certifying or qualifying organization but an educational one, whose goal was to educate all psychiatrists in forensic psychiatry. Then in early 1976, a serendipitous event happened. Maier Tuchler, who at that time was president of the Forensic Sciences Foundation, contacted Bob Sadoff about the formation of an American Board of Forensic Psychiatry. Bob and Maier in turn contacted Seymour, Stan Portnow, John Torrens, Zigmond Lebensonn, Jonas Rappeport, Bernard Diamond, Irwin Perr, and Walter Bromberg. Maier informed the group that the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (the predecessor to the National Institute of Justice) had given a grant to the Forensic Sciences Foundation to establish boards to certify expertise in several different forensic areas. These included forensic odon-