The Huffington Post Features an Op-Ed by Dean Victor Schwartz and Drs. Jerald Kay and Paul Appelbaum on the Dangers of Firearms on Campus

(The Huffington Post) Several states are currently dealing with well-organized efforts to loosen regulations prohibiting or limiting the ability to carry firearms on college campuses. The University of Colorado is now being sued by the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus over the institution’s right to enact a campus-wide ban on concealed weapons. In Texas, the passage of pending legislation that would allow guns at colleges and universities is disconcerting. Noting that there are already far too many illegal weapons on campus, Gov. Rick Perry has said “I want there to be legal guns on campus. I think it makes sense – and all the data supports – that if law-abiding, well-trained, ‘backgrounded’ individuals have a weapon, there will be less crime.”

As longtime college health professionals, physicians and researchers, we politely but vehemently disagree. More students carrying guns at colleges and universities will lead to significantly more deaths than would be prevented by attempts to stop what are very rare mass attacks or even homicides.

In fact, the rate of homicide on college campuses over the past 15 years is one per million students. Yet, consider that the rate of suicide among college students is already 100 times the rate of homicides. Each year, some 10% to 15% of young men and women on campus seriously think about suicide and approximately 1 % to 3% of them will make a suicide attempt. Read full article on The Huffington Post…

Dr. Victor Schwartz is University Dean of Students at Yeshiva University and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Jerald Kay is professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine. Dr. Paul Appelbaum is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law and director of the Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Drs. Schwartz and Kay are the editors of Mental Health Care in the College Community(Wiley-Blackwell).

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President Richard Joel to Speak at Nov. 18 Reception Honoring Einstein Dean Allen Spiegel

UJA-Federation of New York’s Montefiore Medical Center & Albert Einstein College of Medicine Campaign’s Annual Reception will honor Allen M. Spiegel, Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz dean at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, at its annual reception on Thursday, November 18, 2010, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Price Center. The campaign chairs are Shalom Kalnicki, M.D., and Arnold Wilson, M.D, and event chairs are Donald Ashkenase, Allan Brook, M.D., and Edward Burns, M.D.

The reception will feature guest speaker Richard M. Joel, president of Yeshiva University. A nationally renowned leader, he has spoken globally on the importance of communal leadership and rich Jewish identity to ensure a Jewish future in America, in Israel, and around the world.

Allen M. Spiegel, M.D., dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, is an internationally recognized researcher and endocrinologist. Prior to joining Einstein, Dr. Spiegel was director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the culmination of a distinguished 33-year-career at NIH. Dr. Spiegel has extensive experience in translational research programs, and his work on signal transduction helped to clarify the genetic basis of several endocrine diseases.

Learn more here.

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