Accreditation of Fellowship Programs in Forensic Psychiatry: the development of the final report on standards.

When it was initially proposed, at the October 1979 annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, that a Committee on Accreditation of Fellowship Programs in Forensic Psychiatry be created, it was not immediately clear that the project would be carried through to completion. The first two persons who were approached with the suggestion that the topic be presented at either the meeting of the Executive Committee or the Business meeting of the membership of AAPL declined to do so. In fact, the original authorization was to explore the feasibility of developing and implementing standards for postresidency training programs. That the initial stage of the work of the Committee has been successful is, thus, both gratifying and somewhat surprising. Part of the problem was the fact that the members ofthe Committee were spread across a large geographic area, so that face-to-face communication would be restricted to the October and May formal meetings of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Another difficulty, at least at the start of the project, was that the Committee had no funds for a secretary, for' typing or duplicating materials, and no money to pay for postage or telephone calls. Among the lesser problems was enlisting theacth'l' cooperation of forensic psychiatrists who were experienced educators and who had a wide range of other commitments that restricted their time. By May 1980, a Committee of fourteen members had been created and held an organizational meeting in San Francisco. It was determined that seven sub-committees would be formed to work on the substance of the standards to be developed. Dr. James Cavanaugh, Jr. would chair the SUb-committee on Law School liaison and legal education. Dr. J. Richard Ciccone would chair the sub-committee on supervised clinical experiences. Dr. Park E. Dietz would chair the sub-committee on training in research. Dr. Jonas Rappeport and Dr. Park Dietz would co-chair the sub-committee on library resources. Dr. Richard Rosner would chair the sub-committee on the process of accreditation and would function as coordinator of the activities of the Committee as a whole. Dr. Robert Sadoff and Dr. Phillip Resnick would co-chair the sub-committee on faculty for fellowship programs in forensic psychiatry. At a later date, two additional sub-committees Were created. One, chaired by Dr. David Barry, was directed to training fellows to be educators. The other, co-chaired by Dr. Selwyn Smith and Dr.