On May 22, 2004, the Robert L. Sadoff Library of Forensic Psychiatry and Legal Medicine was dedicated at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Dr. Sadoff donated 4,000 items to the Library of the College, considered to be one of the foremost medical libraries in the world, with one of the most complete collections of antiquarian medical books. Dr. Sadoff's contribution of legal medicine and forensic psychiatry texts complements and strengthens the College Library.
The dedication of the Sadoff Library provided an opportunity to celebrate Dr. Sadoff's generous donation of his impressive collection of antiquarian texts on legal medicine and forensic psychiatry to a library well-equipped to foster the scholarship that will be derived from his collection so patiently and lovingly gathered over many years. More importantly, however, the event was an opportunity for friends and colleagues to gather to honor Dr. Sadoff's career and his profound contributions to the many broad areas of the field of forensic psychiatry.
We are fortunate in this issue of the Journal to be able to publish the fine presentations that were given at the dedication by leading scholars. But I would be remiss merely to introduce those presentations without taking the opportunity to highlight and celebrate Dr. Sadoff's peripatetic and expansive career and his many personal contributions to our field and the welfare and careers of his colleagues.
Dr. Sadoff is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Studies in Social-Legal Psychiatry and the Forensic Psychiatry Clinic. He is a Minnesota native who attained two bachelor degrees and his MD at the University of Minnesota. He then went to UCLA, where he completed his residency in psychiatry and earned a Master of Science Degree in Psychiatry. He traveled to Philadelphia, destined to become his home, where he completed 33 credits in law studies at Temple University School of Law while serving as a Captain in the U.S. Medical Corps at Walson Army Hospital in Fort Dix, New Jersey. He then completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry jointly sponsored by the law and medical schools of Temple University.
Dr. Sadoff has been a lecturer in law and an honored teacher of psychiatry, a clinical director of a maximum-security psychiatric hospital, and a consultant to many other forensic psychiatric facilities. He is licensed in 5 states and has lectured in nearly all of the United States and in 12 countries of the world. In his forensic practice, he has examined over 9,000 individuals in more than 20 jurisdictions. He is also a prolific author, having contributed to our field more than 90 journal articles, over 30 book chapters and 6 books, including Forensic Psychiatry: A Practical Guide for Lawyers and Psychiatrists,1 and the 1993 Guttmacher Award-winning book Psychiatric Malpractice: Cases and Comments for Clinicians,2 coauthored with Robert I. Simon, MD.
Dr. Sadoff was the second president of AAPL, serving from 1971 to 1973. He has received, among other awards, the Philippe Pinel Award of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health in 1995, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Philadelphia Psychiatric Association in 1996, and the Golden AAPL Award in 1996.
My personal introduction to Dr. Sadoff was his hosting of the AAPL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in 1986, which was my very first AAPL meeting. The meeting was as good a demonstration as any of Dr. Sadoff's affable and vivacious personality. He assembled a reception complete with pushcarts offering Philadelphia food specialties and a performance by the Mummers in full regalia, which is not something one sees every day. I must also mention that my introduction to forensic psychiatry stems from Dr. Sadoff's professional generosity to young colleagues. It was with him that Drs. Stephen Billick and Richard McCarrick learned forensic psychiatry, and they became my mentors at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York, encouraging me to explore forensics through research and ultimately the Rappeport Fellowship. Through the latter, I was invited to Dr. Sadoff's home during that AAPL meeting for a wonderful reception and more of his hospitality and generosity. I still recall quite vividly seeing the book collection now donated to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in its natural habitat. I can thus personally vouch for the extraordinary nature of this gift.
What follows in this special Analysis and Commentary section is a collection of presentations at the dedication ceremony by leading scholars in the fields of legal medicine, history of medicine, and forensic psychiatry. The scope of these presentations reflects the breadth and depth of the collection given to the College Library and of the career of Dr. Robert Sadoff.
Michael Perlin, Professor of Law, New York Law School (and a frequent contributor to the Journal and speaker at AAPL meetings), presents the “History of the Mental Disability Law” and a personal tribute to Dr. Sadoff's contributions to the field of disability law. Cyril Wecht, MD, JD, Medical Examiner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and former president of the American College of Legal Medicine and of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, provides “The History of Legal Medicine.” Janet Tighe, PhD, Codirector of the Health and Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, writes about the history of the term “insanity” in law and psychiatry in England and the United States. Thomas G. Gutheil, MD, former President of AAPL and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, provides a discussion of the “History of Forensic Psychiatry.” Finally, Jonas R. Rappeport, MD, first President of AAPL and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry atJohns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, provides his assessment of “The Present and Future of Forensic Psychiatry.”
Because of space limitations, we have saved for the next issue a challenging article by Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, on the failure of bioethics to come to grips with the Holocaust, entitled “Too Hard to Face.”
We are pleased to be able to provide this testament to the wonderfully productive career of our friend and colleague, Dr. Robert L. Sadoff.
Robert L. Sadoff, MD
- American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
