The Civilian Psychiatrist and the Draft
IRA M. FRANK M.D.1, and
FREDERICK S. HOEDEMAKER M.D.2
1 U.S. Public Health Service fellow in legal psychiatry at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA Center for the Health Sciences, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, Calif. 90024
2 Private practice in Bellevue, Wash.
A study of 11 patients who presented with psychiatric symptoms after receiving induction or activation notices revealed that their chief motivation was to obtain a letter recommending deferment. The authors discuss the ethical question of psychiatrists' volunteering their services to young men seeking deferment to express their own opposition to the Viet Nam conflict and offer suggestions to the civilian psychiatrist who is called on to evaluate a patient for the draft.
