Psychiatric Standard of Care After a Suicide Attempt: Foreseeability, Judgment, and Departure in New York

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Psychiatric Malpractice

A suicide attempt is a catastrophic outcome, and hindsight makes every prior decision look avoidable. New York malpractice law is built to resist that bias: the question is not whether the patient was harmed, but whether the clinician's contemporaneous judgment departed from accepted practice. An expert who cannot keep those two questions apart is of little use to either side. What New York actually asks after a suicide attempt New York does not impose strict liability on psychiatrists when a patient attempts suicide. A physician who exercises professional judgment in keeping with accepted practice is not liable merely because that judgment, viewed later, proved wrong. The Court of Appeals s

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