Areas of Expertise: Geriatric Psychiatry
I am available to serve as an expert witness, and do legal and forensic record reviews, consultation, and assessments concerning psychiatric issues in older individuals, including testamentary capacity, undue influence and contested wills and trusts.
- ✦Contested Wills and Trusts.
- ✦Testamentary Capacity, including Undue Influence and Insane Delusions.
- ✦Geriatric Competence.
- ✦Dementia and Delirium, including Alzheimer's Disease.
- ✦Geriatric Psychiatry Evaluation and Treatment, including Psychiatric Medication and Psychotherapeutic Issues.
- ✦Depression and Anxiety Disorders in the Aged.
- ✦Aging and Mental Disorders.
- ✦Geriatric Psychiatry issues concerning Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Independent and Assisted Living Facilities.
- ✦Medicare Psychiatric Services Coding and Documentation.
Since 1977, I have specialized in the care of older adults including including the evaluation and treatment of depression, anxiety, stress disorders, relationship problems, insomnia, memory problems, dementia, and other mental and emotional problems which occur in the second half of life.
Psychiatric Consultant to San Francisco Towers CRCC Life Care Community 2020 — present.
Providing legal and forensic consultation on legal issues pertaining to the elderly and their mental, emotional and cognitive functioning, 2005 – present.
I served as Director of Psychiatry at the Jewish Home of San Francisco 2010-2020, where I treated older individuals in a geriatric psychiatry inpatient hospital program, and patients who were in the short term rehabilitation program for medical problems, as well as those in long-term care, who are in need of geriatric psychiatric consultation. Clinical Psychiatrist in Geriatric Psychiatry program, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center 2021-2023. For 33 years, 1977-2010, I was in the Private Practice of Geriatric Psychiatry in Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, seeing outpatients and inpatients. My experience includes working with the elderly in various settings, including clinical and administrative work as Medical Director for the Community Mental Health Center of Miami Beach, Medical Director of an Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry program, and Medical Director of an Inpatient Mood Disorder program, as well as consulting at Nursing Homes, Assisted Living and other facilities.
I am licensed to practice Medicine in California and in Florida. I am Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in General Psychiatry (October, 1979), and in Geriatric Psychiatry (April, 1991; Re-Certified in 2001, 2011 and 2022).
I am Clinical Professor (Voluntary) in the Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco.
I am the Author/co-author of teaching and professional materials, including books and book chapters, and articles in the professional literature. I have been a Lecturer at local, regional, national, and international conferences. I am the author of "Does Your Client Have Testamentary Capacity? Mental Health and Memory Issues That Affect Estate Planning", published in California Trusts and Estates Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 2, pages 25-33, Summer 2011. I am co-author of the book chapter, "Determination of Decision-Making Capacity," in the textbook Geriatric Medicine, published by Springer Press 2023.
I have received multiple professional honors and recognitions. I have been elected as a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. I am a Life Member of the International PsychoGeriatric Association.
In 1997, I was given the Founder's Award by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry for contributions to the field. This was only the 3rd time that this award had been presented since the organization was started in 1978.
In May, 2001, I received the Jack Weinberg Memorial Award in Geriatric Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, their highest award in Geriatric Psychiatry.
In 2003, I was selected as the first recipient of the Clinician of the Year Award by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. In 2004, I was given the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the University of Miami School of Medicine.
I am honored to have been listed in Best Doctors in America beginning in 1992.
I was twice elected President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and served on their Board of Directors. I served as Treasurer of the International PsychoGeriatric Association and was elected to their Board of Directors. I have been a Member of, and Consultant to, the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Aging.
I served on the Task Force on Testamentary Capacity and Undue Influence, for the International PsychoGeriatric Association 2007-2016. I am a member of the Committee on Geriatric Psychiatry for the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.