Back to Institute Archive" Forum to Examine Suicide Risk"
Mental health professionals rate as their most stressful clinical responsibility responding to an individual who poses a suicide risk. They must ensure that their assessment, management, and treatment strategies meet relevant clinical, ethical, and legal standards.
Dr. Bruce Bongar, an international authority on suicide risk assessment and management, will discuss these and other issues on Tuesday, February 1, 2000 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the University of South Florida's Westside Conference Center. The lecture is sponsored by the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute's Department of Mental Health Law & Policy.
Dr. Bongar will discuss the risk factors for suicide, as well as the legal, clinical, and ethical standards for assessing and managing the risk for suicide. Dr. Bongar is the Calvin Professor of Psychology in the doctoral program in clinical psychology at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto, California, and a consulting professor of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has published extensively on suicide and life-threatening behaviors and is the author of The Suicidal Patient: Clinical and Legal Standards of Care.
Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States taking more than 30-thousand American lives in 1996, the most recent year data was available. For every two murders committed in the U.S., three suicides have occurred. This past summer, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher issued a call to action to prevent suicide, referring to it as a national public health threat.
Dr. Bongar's lecture is free and open to the public, however, due to limited seating, pre-registration is required. To register, call 974-9311.