Richard Rosner, MD: pioneer in forensic psychiatry.

“If you don’t do it, someone worse will.” Richard Rosner, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, Director of NYU’s Forensic Psychiatry Residency Program, and seminal figure in North American forensic psychiatry enjoys his own pithy observation. He trots it out to encourage his students to run for political office in professional organizations and to explain why he is current or past president of many organizations linked to forensic psychiatry. The statement also reflects Dr. Rosner’s confidence in his abilities and his skepticism of personage, including his own. We speak about Dr. Rosner’s accomplishments over lunch at the Union Square Cafe. It is a warm spring day. Dr. Rosner is wearing a green khaki suit and a bright red tie, and walks with a cane. He is portly and has arthritis in his knees. It is Restaurant Week in Manhattan, and participating restaurants offer reduced prices on prix fixe menus. The arrangement suits two of Dr. Rosner’s extraprofessional accomplishments: his epicurism and his renown, among his friends, for pinching a penny. He remarks that his parsimony has allowed him—even on his paltry academic salary—to retire comfortably should he ever wish to do so. I comment that Dr. Rosner is extraordinarily generous with the time he gives his students. He was one of my teachers during my forensic psychiatry residency and remains a mentor. I am a beneficiary of his generosity. I am aware of his accomplishments and prefer to chat about his upbringing and preferences, aspects of his life that he does not divulge to his students. Nonetheless, over lunch on a spring day, with a former student now a peer, Richard Rosner obliges me. Before he does so, however, he presents me his curriculum vitae. He intends for his biography to focus on his accomplishments. As if that weren’t enough, a week after our lunch, he e-mails me. Hinting that we didn’t speak much about his professional accomplishments, he “supplements” our conversation with a list of what he regards as his significant Dr. Reeves is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Medical Director, UMDNJ, University Correctional Healthcare, Newark, NJ. Address correspondence to: Rusty Reeves, MD, 112 Raymond Avenue, South Orange, NJ 07079. E-mail: [email protected] Richard Rosner, MD