Uneasy Bedfellows: Building Healthy Relationships with Psychiatric Emergency Services

John 'Jack' Rozel, MD, MSL, DFAPA  Medical Director, resolve Crisis Services of UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh President, American Association for Emergency Psychiatry  Dr. Rozel has been working in emergency mental health for over 25 years and has been the medical director of resolve Crisis Services since 2010.  He is the President of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, the leading national organization dedicated to the improvement of compassionate, evidence based care for people with psychiatric emergencies. As the medical director of resolve Crisis Services, he leads a team of 130 crisis professionals who deliver 125,000 services every year to the residents of Allegheny County through phone, mobile, walk-in and overnight programs delivered through a person centered, recovery oriented model. Dr. Rozel trains and consults with teams across UPMC and the country on projects related to violence and threat management, staff injury prevention, and firearm injury prevention.  He is board certified in general, child and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Rozel is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a 2018 recipient of the Exemplary Psychiatrist award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Dr. Rozel has served as an incident commander for mass shootings and been involved in the behavioral health response to several mass casualty events.  He was a major contributor to the National Council for Behavioral Health's 2019 report on Mass Violence. Dr. Rozel is currently working with a team to develop best practices for violence risk screening for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network and was recently appointed to the Pennsylvania Governor's Special Council on Gun Violence. Dr. Rozel regularly provides clinical and didactic training to medical students, residents and fellows at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; mentors graduate students through the Center for Bioethics and Health Law; co-teaches the Mental Health Law course at the School of Law; teaches crisis intervention to firearms dealers; and teaches regional law and federal law enforcement professionals. He is the creator of the Clinical Homicide and Aggression Management Practices for Inpatient, Outpatient and Nontraditional Settings (CHAMPIONS), a model for integrating threat assessment and management techniques into clinical settings. Dr. Rozel earned a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Ethics and his MD at Brown University.  He received a Master of Studies in Law from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his general psychiatry residency and child and forensic psychiatry fellowships at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC. Dr. Rozel is a member of the Mental Health and Justice Advisory Committee for the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and previously chaired the Legislative Affairs Subcommittee. Along with his colleague Dr. Layla Soliman, he runs the @ViolenceWonks feed on Twitter, providing short summaries of new research on violent behavior. 

Dr. Tony Thrasher is a board-certified psychiatrist employed as the medical director for the Crisis Services branch of the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division.  He received his psychiatric training from Washington University in St. Louis / Barnes Jewish Hospital.  Additionally, he has received endorsement from the AACP (American Association of Community Psychiatrists) for certification in Community and Public Psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and he currently serves as the Milwaukee Chapter President for the Wisconsin Psychiatric Association (WPA).  Additionally, he enjoys teaching as a Clinical Associate Professor with the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and serving as the President Elect for the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry (AAEP).  Looking into 2021, Dr. Thrasher is the editor for a pending Oxford Press publication, 'A Primer on Emergency Psychiatry.' Most recently, he was awarded the Golden Apple Teaching Award by the MCW Department of Psychiatry in 2018 and 2020 as well as being recognized as a 'Top Doctor' by Milwaukee Magazine for 2018 and 2019.  He is also proud to lead a multidisciplinary statewide Wisconsin task force encompassing leaders in both psychiatry and emergency medicine (WPA / WACEP) to address system improvements for the patient experience and other stakeholders!