William “Bill” H. Reid, MD: Always Have a Project

• William Reid
• biography
• ethics
• public health
• clozapine
• psychopathy

Former American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) President, William Reid, MD, received the Golden AAPL Award at the 2025 AAPL meeting in Boston. Additional awards and recognitions Dr. Reid has received over his storied career include the Seymour Pollack Award in 2015, the Manfred S. Guttmacher Award in 2013, Outstanding Leader in Administration for a psychiatrist in 2003, and an investigative award for his work in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in 2000. Over the course of his 40-year career, Dr. Reid has published 300 academic articles and 17 academic books and has been affiliated with multiple academic centers. Considering that his work has shaped many generations of general and forensic psychiatrists, it is easy to see why he was selected to receive the Golden AAPL Award. This recognition provided a wonderful opportunity to sit down and take stock of his career to date. Because he has no plans to stop contributing to the field of psychiatry and his other interests, “career to date” is the most appropriate way to describe his current state of activity. Dr. Reid is still teaching at three medical schools (two University of Texas medical campuses and Texas Tech College of Medicine), is still writing, and is still taking on new projects in forensics, public health, and other fields, such as music.⇓

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Bill Reid, MD

Dr. Reid’s academic achievements are voluminous for any forensic psychiatrist; however, his academic achievements alone do not capture what makes him a true luminary in the field. Some of his journey was very planned and intentional, whereas some occurred only because he took advantage of the unexpected turns that happen to us all. It is from these stories that I hope readers will come to appreciate Dr. Reid’s accomplishments and gain insight into his determination, grace, and humor, which has helped to shape the field of forensic psychiatry.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Reid grew up primarily in Amarillo, Texas. He attended the University of Minnesota, initially studying physics but later changing his degree to psychology. He then attended the University of Minnesota Medical School, where he obtained his degree in 1970. He completed his residency at University of California (UC) Davis and also obtained a master’s in Public Health with a specialization in health management administration from UC Berkeley in 1975.

One of the first unexpected turns in Dr. Reid’s career was having his residency training interrupted by the Vietnam War. Drafted after only one year of residency, he served in the United States Army at the rank of captain for two years as a psychiatrist. Dr. Reid related that he was stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana in a billet that no one else wanted. The position was originally designated as a Mental Hygiene Director and intended for a lieutenant colonel or higher. Because it had gone unfilled, a fresh-faced Captain Reid was assigned the position. This highlights an aspect of Dr. Reid’s career that played out multiple times, where he embraced the classic Robert Frost poem about taking the road less traveled. He notes that the experience of being the base’s Mental Hygiene Director was wonderful for him because he learned more about health care leadership, management, and self-confidence, from both his failures and “modest successes,” than he did during his residency.

After finishing his training and time in the military, Dr. Reid practiced general psychiatry for a few years in the state of New Mexico. From there, he had to choose between going to Stanford or the University of Nebraska to start his academic medical career in earnest. Dr. Reid, with his humble and self-deprecating sense of humor, notes that he was too much of a narcissist to be a small fish in the big pond of Stanford, so he decided to go to Nebraska. He reported having a degree of freedom at the University of Nebraska, which allowed him to explore psychiatric opportunities and develop a regional and national reputation. For example, Merrill Eaton, MD, Chair and Director of the University’s Nebraska Psychiatric Institute, allowed him to travel weekly to Chicago for training in psychoanalysis and to teach at Rush and Northwestern.

After his time in Nebraska, Dr. Reid returned to Texas, eventually becoming statewide Medical Director for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation or Developmental Disabilities. From there, he further developed a national reputation in topics such as public sector health care, use of clozapine, suicide and risk management, terrorism, mass shootings, and violence. Given his time in the Texas health system and his work on violence, Dr. Reid is a strong supporter of understanding and reducing suicide. He sees his work in the public sector of making clozapine more available to Texas patients specifically and U.S. patients overall as one of his most important career accomplishments. He is still working on suicide prevention and is coauthoring a new book with Dr. Gilbert Honigfeld, who developed clozapine for the U.S. market, in the hope that the medication, which many call the “gold standard” for schizophrenia and suicide prevention, will support an era of better patient treatment.

When asked how he first got involved in work on terrorism, Dr. Reid noted there was a spate of airplane hijackings during the 1970s which, again, led to a serendipitous opportunity that “[he] just kind of backed into.” As often happened in his career, working on one terrorism case led to another, and these opportunities resulted in more learning, researching, and writing. Dr. Reid digressed at this point to discuss his concern that, although psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are often looked to as experts in violence and its prevention, most do not, and cannot, have the training, experience, and authority that some other professions, such as law enforcement, bring to the problem. Both the psychiatric field and the public, he says, routinely overestimate the role of mental health access, diagnosis, and care in ordinary and extraordinary violence. Terrorism and large mass killings, for example, are extremely complex problems in which forensic psychiatry and psychology can have a role, but, except in certain relatively unusual cases, our backgrounds, training, and expertise rarely make us the definitive professional experts.

An interesting historical fact that many may not know is that Dr. Reid is a second-generation psychiatrist. Although he is primarily associated with the great state of Texas, he jokes that his father, after having a private psychiatric practice in West Texas, labored in the fields of community mental health as a “shirt-sleeved psychiatrist in northern Minnesota.” Dr. Reid noted that one of the most cherished moments in his career was having his father author a chapter on rural psychopaths in one of his early books. Dr. Reid recalls that his father, a humble man, was worried about writing a chapter that would be surrounded by those of many leading academics of the time. In the end, his father’s chapter¹ in The Psychopath: A Comprehensive Study of Antisocial Disorders and Behaviors² was among the most cited and best reviewed of them all.

Outside of his professional career, an important aspect of Dr. Reid’s makeup is his creative and artistic side. For example, Dr. Reid is a self-taught blues musician and author. He is one of the few AAPL presidents that I am aware of who has a YouTube channel,³ which includes him singing classic blues and folk songs, such as Snake Farm. Bill Reid and the Fewer Sorrows Band has been on the Grammy ballot for five of their six albums (although he admits they have never gotten a final nomination). He and the band record in Nashville; he plays solo and with his trio mostly in Texas. He feels fortunate to have been welcomed by the music community and to have been surrounded by “much better musicians, who refrain from laughing at [him] in public.” When asked whether he has ever had the opportunity to play at The Bluebird Cafe, a famous blues and country venue in Nashville, Dr. Reid responds “yes,” but again with a sly smile, he clarifies that he auditioned at an open mike night there. So, although never paid to play at The Bluebird, he has had the experience. Also, while talking about his music, Dr. Reid just casually mentions that he has also written a symphony and several children’s books on topics outside of medicine.

As Dr. Reid does with many of his achievements, he describes that “[he] just happened to back into forensic work” when a family member, who was an attorney, recommended his name to a rural New Mexico judge. This was at a time prior to the creation of forensic fellowships, and few were approaching forensic work in an organized structured manner as occurs today. Dr. Reid jokes that he learned a lot on that case, mostly what not to do. This case was his initiation into forensics, which led to more and more work in the field. He soon joined AAPL to learn and associate with other forensic psychiatrists. AAPL had only existed for about 10 years at the time Dr. Reid joined. He describes AAPL as being “a very warm and welcoming group, especially toward a simple Midwestern guy” such as himself. Dr. Reid admits he was initially worried that he would be primarily dealing with East Coast intellectuals, who might be somewhat cold. But he describes AAPL as always being a diverse group that thrives on helping people advance, find opportunities, and share knowledge.

Dr. Reid became president of AAPL in 1988-89 and is still active in the organization to this day. At the most recent AAPL meeting, where he received the Golden AAPL award, Dr. Reid presented on two panels that discussed some of his more well known cases, such as his involvement in the organized crime case of Vincent “the Chin” Gigante and the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting trial. When asked for his single greatest accomplishment during his presidential year, Dr. Reid noted that he agreed with then-current President Ryan Wagoner’s comment that sometimes “the best presidencies are the quiet ones that do not stand out.” He does not think his presidency stood out, but, he says, “it was pretty quiet.”

With that being stated, Dr. Reid noted that one of his most relevant forensic teaching roles has been to encourage the ethics of objectivity over advocacy in an expert’s work. He feels strongly that forensic work is helping the trier of fact, not working as an “advocate.” He warns that people who put their hearts into their cases at the expense of intellect and factual objectivity are looking for trouble and will likely damage both their reputations and the profession. He cites his never accepting animal cruelty cases as an example, saying that his love of animals and disgust for those who mistreat them would cloud his objectivity.

As Dr. Reid nears his 80th birthday, he notes that he is working on new projects involving psychopathy and clozapine. He is still teaching residents and fellows. And, as long as he is able to, he will always continue in some form of mental health and forensic work. He embodies a philosophy of taking advantage of opportunities and listening to multiple perspectives but, at the end of the day, doing what is right for your role. He recalls early advice from John Lion, MD to “always have a project.” Dr. Reid has held onto that advice for decades, hence the title of this article.

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