Biography
A founding member of Affiliated Monitors, Ronald Schouten, M.D., J.D. is the Director of the Law & Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is also president of KeyPeople Resources, Inc., which provides medical intelligence and consultation on workplace behavioral health and infectious diseases, such as SARS and avian influenza.
Dr. Schouten practiced employment law in Chicago before attending medical school. He has combined his legal and medical knowledge to consult with and train a wide range of clients. In addition to his extensive experience in forensic psychiatry, he advises organizations on how to deal with impaired professionals, sexual harassment, violence in the workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
An innovator in the teaching of forensic mental-health issues, he developed a grand-rounds program on mental-health for Massachusetts judges, a Harvard Medical School Continuing Education Program for legal professionals, the Harvard Medical School Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship, and numerous teaching programs for the Law & Psychiatry Service and Harvard Medical School. He has served as a consultant and trainer, presenting violence in the workplace and sexual harassment programs for major corporations.
Dr. Schouten has served as a subject matter expert for the Biological Threat Classification Program of the Department of Homeland Security and has testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack.
He was the mental health liaison for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to the September 11 Victims’ Fund and served on consensus panels drafting guidelines on workplace violence for the FBI and the American Society of Industrial Security. Dr. Schouten is a consultant on terrorism issues to the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
Dr. Schouten is a past President of the Academy of Organizational and Occupational Psychiatry and editor of the forensic column for the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. He is a board-certified psychiatrist with added qualifications in forensic psychiatry, and a designated forensic psychiatrist in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts, New York and California, and is a member of the Bar of the State of Illinois. He earned his law degree from the Boston University School of Law, his medical degree from the University of Illinois and his bachelor's degree from Haverford College.