Medical Center Psychiatrist Wins Award for Book on Workplace Violence

Michael R. Privitera, M.D., M.S., associate professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, will receive the 2012 Manfred S. Guttmacher Award, which is given for an outstanding contribution to the literature of forensic psychiatry.

Privitera, director of the Psychiatry Consultation Service at the Medical Center, edited Workplace Violence in Mental and General Healthcare Settings and wrote several chapters in the book, which offers practical suggestions for the prevention and control of violence in the healthcare workplace that many consider at an epidemic level.

The Guttmacher award, established in 1967, is sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Privitera, a Medical Center faculty member since 1983, will receive the award in May at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Philadelphia, where he also will give a lecture. In a letter, James Scully, M.D., chairman of the board of the American Psychiatric Foundation, praised Privitera for his leadership and “outstanding achievements” in the field of psychiatry.

Workplace Violence in Mental and General Healthcare Settings is aimed at clinicians, administrators, law enforcement professionals, educators and insurance and pharmaceutical officials. Writers of chapters in the book include Medical Center faculty members and professionals as well as experts from the University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland, and consultants from across the country and Australia.

Jane Lipscomb, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N., director of the Work and Health Research Center at the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Nursing, calls the book a “platform for action.”

“Dr. Privitera has brought together a cadre of expert “big thinkers,” representing a range of perspectives and experiences, that has the potential to curb the tide of violence acted out in our healthcare settings and ultimately save lives, careers, and the healthcare industry,” Lipscomb writes in the book’s forward.

Workplace Violence in Mental and General Healthcare Settings was published by Jones and Bartlett Publishers.