Elspeth Cameron Ritchie

Dr. Elspeth Cameron "Cam" Ritchie is a long-time Army psychiatrist now serving as the chief clinical officer for the District of Columbia's Department of Mental Health. Before retiring from the Army in 2010, she spent the final five of her 24 years in uniform as the top advocate for mental health inside of the Office of the Army Surgeon General. Before that, she served in other leadership roles including as the psychiatry consultant to the Army Surgeon general at the Department of Defense Health Affairs. Trained at Harvard, George Washington, Walter Reed, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, she is a professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences - the U.S. military's medical school -- in Bethesda, Md., and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. An internationally recognized expert on mental trauma, she has completed fellowships in forensic and preventive and disaster psychiatry. She served around the world for the Army, including Cuba, Iraq, South Korea and Somalia. She has published more than 130 professional articles, mainly dealing with forensic, disaster, suicide, ethics, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women's health issues. Major publications include The Mental Health Response to the 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon, Mental Health Interventions for Mass Violence and Disaster, and Humanitarian Assistance and Health Diplomacy: Military-Civilian Partnership in the 2004 Tsunami Aftermath. She was the senior editor on a Military Medicine text on Combat and Operational Behavioral Health, the Textbook of Forensic Military Mental Health, and the Therapeutic Use of Canines in Army Medicine.

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Army photo / Staff Sgt. Antonieta Rico

Troop Mental Ills: Psychiatric or Organic?

There’s a continuing tension over whether mental disorders are “organic” or “psychological”. The first is easier to define — a brain injury caused by an insult, such as a bullet wound, blow to the head or bomb blast. “Psychological” is usually chalked up to bad parenting. Two new debates raise this issue again. One is [...]

Former Foes, Now Allied

I love all of the current dialogue between the American Psychiatric Association and the military. For years, they were at loggerheads, principally about the policy of not allowing gays to openly serve in the armed forces. Military psychiatrists could wear their uniform at APA events, but were often singled out for criticism over the policy. [...]

What’s In a Name?

I want to add to the debate on the hot issue at the American Psychiatric Association this week. Retired Army general and vice chief of staff Peter Chiarelli made a strong case for re-naming post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Chiarelli advocates calling it post-traumatic stress injury. The Canadians use the term “operational stress injury” or [...]

Army

Civilians, Into the Breach

I am encouraged recently to see that community-based, civilian clinicians want to be prepared to meet the mental health needs of returning veterans and their families. One great example is the extraordinary response to a free on-line educational series From the War Zone to the Home Front: Supporting the Mental Health Needs of Veterans and [...]

Psychiatrists Pondering PTSD in Philadelphia

Next week is the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, the largest yearly gathering of its kind. It’s exciting because of the prominence military matters are going to get. Last year there were perhaps 15 military-related sessions at the meeting in Hawaii. This year, there’s going to be twice as many dedicated to military [...]

Army Photo illustration / Jennifer Clampet

PTSD: Treatments That Work

The recently-issued policy on screening and treating PTSD from the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General (OTSG) is dense, specific and should be helpful in advancing the field of post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis and treatment. Last week, I posted on the change in the criteria for diagnosing PTSD.  Now we’ll examine a central focus of the [...]

The New Rules on PTSD

Wow. The new 17-page policy from the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General (OTSG ) on screening and treating PTSD is exciting and comprehensive. And will absolutely be controversial. Although it is playing out in the news as related to the Fort Lewis controversy – were its reversals of PTSD diagnoses there fair? — this [...]

Beyond the Headlines: Care With Compassion

I visited Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington state last week, to attend the retirement of a good friend of mine, another Army psychiatrist who has served for many years. I have blogged before about my dismay at the allegations swirling around the post’s Madigan Army Medical Center. But this was my first time back to [...]

Play Ball!

Along with the pain, there are some real bright spots in the ongoing saga of veterans returning home. One such is the Home Base program sponsored by the Boston Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital. The program started about three years ago, and brings together the Red Sox Nation with the clinical expertise at [...]

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A Soldier’s Best Friend…

The Army’s Medical Department just published a journal devoted to the use of dogs in Army medicine. I wanted to highlight the publication here on Time’s Battleland. Both dog- and soldier-lovers can read it for free. Army medicine has been using dogs to work with combat stress-control teams in theater since about 2007.  Dogs assist [...]