We read with great interest and appreciation the article ‘Forensic psychiatry in Europe’ by Gordon & Lindqvist (Psychiatric Bulletin, November 2007, 31, 421–424).

The wide variety of forensic psychiatric practices in the 45 member states of the Council of Europe is not unlike what exists in the 50 states of the USA, each with its own criminal code and set of laws that frequently require the involvement of forensic psychiatrists. Indeed, the article could have been titled ‘Forensic psychiatry in Europe and America.’

In the section on ethics in forensic psychiatry the authors call attention to reports of differences in the canons of ethics pertaining to US and British forensic psychiatrists. The fact is that one or two prominent US forensic psychiatrists visiting the UK have misinformed our British colleagues that forensic psychiatrists in the USA follow principles of ethics that are different from the code of medical ethics applicable to psychiatrists everywhere. We feel it is important for our British colleagues to know that the vast majority of US forensic psychiatrists do not subscribe to the notion that the so-called ‘forensicist’ operates outside the medical framework and does not act as a physician. Forensic psychiatrists throughout the USA would agree with Drs Gordon and Lindqvist that the knowledge and expertise on which the psychiatrist bases his or her work ‘is that of medicine and psychiatry and the ethical framework is that grounded within [his or her] profession.’

In rejecting the overtures by ‘forensicists’ that a special code of ethics for them be adopted, the Ethics Committee of the American Psychiatric Association has declared that ‘psychiatrists are physicians, and physicians are physicians at all times.’