On November 5th, 2007, Dr. Paul Appelbaum of Columbia University gave a lecture at the close of the ScattergoodEthics Program's inaugural conference.  Both the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Pennsylvania Gazette ran stories discussing Dr. Appelbaum's presentation and the ScattergoodEthics Program. See our Media section for more information about the lecture and its coverage in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

The Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health was born from the recognition that the area of behavioral health ethics is woefully underserved. There is a great need for reliable and current on-line resources in the field. With the launch of this website, ScattergoodEthics hopes to fill this gap by providing a central source of information to those interested in the ethics of behavioral and mental health.

The ScattergoodEthics Program was formed through collaboration between the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics. It is the only established program in the United States dedicated to exploring ethical issues in behavioral health. Our goals include providing a central resource for information on the ethics of behavioral health, offering training and educational materials to clinicians and practitioners in behavioral health, mentoring post-doctoral fellows, and conducting original research and scholarship in the field.

Behavioral healthcare gives rise to special ethical challenges. As all medical specialties, it must deal with the reality of modern medical practice – the uninsured, limits on reimbursement even among the insured and worries about malpractice. It must try to minimize the side effects of its medications as it maximizes the effects of treatments that are imperfect. It must concern itself with all the quotidian problems of clinical care in a convoluted system. In addition, however, behavioral healthcare must disproportionately cope with patients whose decision-making capacities are often compromised; family caregivers with a huge personal investment in the treatment and disposition of patients; treatments that themselves affect patient judgment and cognition; patients with impaired life circumstances, such as the inability to hold a job or homelessness; patients who resist treatment; and, among psychiatrists uniquely, the necessity at times of acting as agents of social control, confining people against their will who are deemed a threat to themselves or others.

These are just some of the issues encompassed by the field of behavioral and mental health ethics. The ScattergoodEthics Blog will feature periodic posts on current debates, recent studies, and central topics to the field. The Blog will host a range of experts, clinicians, and practitioners who will contribute their expertise and experiences to the discussion. Please visit this page frequently or sign up for the automatic updates to remain up to date.

The ScattergoodEthics website will continue to compile the most up-to-date scholarly research in existing and emerging behavioral and mental health ethics issues. We hope you will utilize the resources available – including the Forum, Blog and Library – to inform your understanding of the issues and advance the dialogue on behavioral and mental health ethics.