The Louisiana State Police and I have a conference!

This week over one dozen Louisiana State Police Troopers from a variety of troop divisions came to our VA to attend a conference on Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention. Some of the troopers are SWAT team members, highway patrol, and others were specialists in hostage negotiations-- a really cool collection of law enforcement! I was part of the panel from the VA that was asked to offer recommendations to them for managing crises in the community, especially suicidality. In addition to me (the psychiatrist), we had a psychologist, licensed social worker, and suicide prevention coordinator.

I gave an educational seminar on "How to recognize, assess, and manage five common psychiatric disorders in the community." The troopers were very interested in learning how to recognize the many faces of mental illness when they are called to a crisis scene--i.e. Bipolar Disorder, Major Depression, Schizophrenia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Schizophrenia. I discussed with them the signs & symptoms of each, as well as clues to which disorder it might be based upon the medication that the person may tell them that they are prescribed. I also discussed the various illicit street drugs that can mimic psychiatric disorders. Moreover, they were interested to hear about my recommendations on how to approach each person suffering from that particular disorder in unique ways depending on the type of mental illness the person may have.


The conference was very lively, enjoyable and educational! Our state police are a very committed, professional, and caring group of men and women that showed a genuine concern for the civilians that they encounter each day.


They asked me to create and write a handbook or field guide of the topics I discussed, which could be made available to all of their colleagues in their departments! Sounds like a new publication project will be on the way...!