Psychiatric Fitness in Safety-Sensitive Roles: How New York's Disability Standard Frames the Evaluation

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Employment and Fitness

When a surgeon, pilot, police officer, or commercial driver is referred for psychiatric fitness review, two pressures collide: the employer's duty to protect the public and the employee's right to keep working with accommodation. A forensic opinion is useful only if it resolves that tension in the precise terms New York law uses, not in the language of clinical risk in the abstract. The governing standard New York actually applies Disability fitness disputes in New York employment are decided under the New York State Human Rights Law, Executive Law §296, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and requires reasonable accommodation unless the employer shows undue hardship. T

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