Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie is a forensic psychiatrist with especial expertise in military and veteran’s issues. She most recently was the Chief Clinical Officer, Department of Behavioral Health, for the District of Columbia. She retired from the Army in 2010, after holding numerous leadership positions within Army Medicine, to including Psychiatry Consultant to the Army Surgeon General. She trained at Harvard, George Washington, Walter Reed, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and has completed fellowships in both forensic and preventive and disaster psychiatry. She is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and at Georgetown and Howard Universities. An internationally recognized expert, she brings a unique public health approach to the management of disaster and combat mental health issues. Her assignments and other missions have taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, and Cuba. She has over 200 publications, mainly in the areas of forensic, disaster, suicide, ethics, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women’s health issues. Major publications include the Military Medicine Textbook on “Combat and Operational Behavioral Health”, “The Mental Health Response to the 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon”, “Mental Health Interventions for Mass Violence and Disaster”, “Humanitarian Assistance and Health Diplomacy: Military-Civilian Partnership in the 2004 Tsunami Aftermath”, and the series in 2013 on The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicines for the Treatment of PTSD in military service members. She is the senior editor on the forthcoming volumes: “Forensic and Ethical Issues in Military Behavioral Health”, “Women at War”, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans: A Clinical Casebook.
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