BIOGRAPHY
Recipient of the “National Exemplary Psychiatrist Award” and named “Mental Health Professional of the Year” by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Dr. Komrad is a psychiatrist on the teaching faculty of Johns Hopkins and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland, Tulane and LSU. He earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics at Yale University, his M.D. degree at Duke Medical School, and trained in internal medicine and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He was an attending psychiatrist on the Treatment Resistant Psychotic Disorders Unit at Sheppard Pratt Hospital for 15 years, where he continues to train residents in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.
In addition to clinical psychiatry, Dr. Komrad is a medical ethicist. He chaired the Ethics Committee and ethics consultation service for the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Maryland for over 25 years. He served on the Ethics Committee of the American Psychiatric Association for 6 years, which oversees ethics and professionalism for psychiatry in the U.S. He is a member of the Ethics Committee for the American College of Psychiatrists. A frequent writer, consultant and lecturer on issues in psychiatric ethics, he was twice honored with the Carol Davis Ethics Award by the American Psychiatric Association for his work in writing and teaching ethics to psychiatrists. Recently he has been speaking throughout the U.S. and internationally, also consulting to government policy makers, expressing ethical concerns related to physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, especially concern that these procedures are available to people with mental illness in some countries. He speaks widely about why legalizing these procedures is neither good social policy nor good medical ethics. He is a founder of an international consortium of physicians who maintain that these should not be considered “medical” practices, Doctors Say No
Dr. Komrad has a private practice in general psychiatry. His technique is to combine psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, a combination treatment that has become increasingly rare in the contemporary mental health care environment. He often consults to colleagues on difficult cases and has a special interest in helping families convince troubled loved ones to get psychiatric evaluation and treatment, based on his book You Need Help: A Step-by-Step Plan to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling (Hazelden Press) (www.YouNeedHelpBook.com).
Dr. Komrad also appears widely on TV, radio and podcasts to discuss topics in psychiatry. He has been the host of a nationally syndicated, weekly, call-in, radio talkshow about psychiatry—““Komrad on Call,” and regularly appeared on a medical talkshow “Sunday Rounds,” a call-in radio show broadcast to over 40 million listeners around the world. In addition, Dr. Komrad has served as consultant in the development of a major Hollywood film and a dramatic TV serial, both about psychiatrists, consulted on books and screenplays and even played the part of a psychiatrist in a movie—all in an attempt to create more accurate portrayals of psychiatrists and the mentally ill on TV and in the movies,.
Dr. Komrad was elected by his peers to the prestigious “American College of Psychiatrists” an organization of 750 psychiatric leaders who have “demonstrated outstanding competence and achieved national recognition.” He was also named as a "Distinguished Fellow" of the American Psychiatric Association—a special distinction, "for exceptional contributions to the community and the profession of psychiatry.” He was named to the “Target Zero-to-Thrive Hall of Fame” by the National Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. Locally, he was voted by professional peers and profiled as "One of Maryland's Top Mental Health Practitioners" by Baltimore Magazine, and separately named as one of the “Top Doctors,” in Baltimore by that publication.
For a biographical article see:
For complete Curriculum Vitae (CV, Resume) see:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PKlh6-HrGkYb197n7SHgWIq8OzUutte5zQFbfHAjqio/edit?tab=t.0
