child custody evaluator TME

[PrideNeverDie]

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i just watched a documentary called Divorce Corp and i saw a psychiatrist working as a child custody evaluator

from what was revealed in the documentary, a psych attending just has to attend a 2 day seminar to become a child custody evaluator. then, if a judge uses you as a child custody evaluator you get 1 hour to determine how fit the parent is to have custody and you bill for thousands of dollars.

does anyone have any experience with child custody evaluators? is that a realistic portrayal or hyperbole?

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

It takes longer than an hour to decide what pair of shoes to buy. You certainly can't decide if a person is fit to be a parent in an hour. A quick google says around 15hrs on average, obviously spread out over a few interactions.

FYI in case you forgot.. we're physicians. We're supposed to act in our patient's best interests. That doesn't line up with salivating over maximizing hourly earnings while making rushed decisions that will have enormous consequences for a child's future.

Seriously, get your mind right. Treat the job with the respect it demands.

 

[Shikima]

It takes longer than an hour to decide what pair of shoes to buy. You certainly can't decide if a person is fit to be a parent in an hour. A quick google says around 15hrs on average, obviously spread out over a few interactions.

FYI in case you forgot.. we're physicians. We're supposed to act in our patient's best interests. That doesn't line up with salivating over maximizing hourly earnings while making rushed decisions that will have enormous consequences for a child's future.

Seriously, get your mind right. Treat the job with the respect it demands.

Don't delude yourself. This is no different than being any other professional. Altruism died with diminishing returns on work and increasing debt loads. Bottom line is we're providing a safe service for a fee.

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Don't delude yourself. This is no different than being any other professional. Altruism died with diminishing returns on work and increasing debt loads. Bottom line is we're providing a safe service for a fee.

If altruism dies when finances suffer, then it was never really altruism was it?

I agree with you, we're professionals. Professionalism implies a code of ethics and conduct. Lawyers have a duty to represent their clients to the best of their abilities, accountants have their statutory duties, and hopefully we're all aware of our professional obligations. Finances don't change any of that.

Do you really think it's possible to properly evaluate the fitness of a parent in an hour? If not, you can't take the work and still be acting as a physician.

I remember saying some words when they handed me my diploma. I'm pretty sure you do as well. I don't remember there being a clause excusing us if the money wasn't right.

 

[heyjack70]

i just watched a documentary called Divorce Corp and i saw a psychiatrist working as a child custody evaluator

from what was revealed in the documentary, a psych attending just has to attend a 2 day seminar to become a child custody evaluator. then, if a judge uses you as a child custody evaluator you get 1 hour to determine how fit the parent is to have custody and you bill for thousands of dollars.

does anyone have any experience with child custody evaluators? is that a realistic portrayal or hyperbole?

1 hour is well below the typical evaluation time (preposterously low even?). Is the documentary negatively commenting on the psychiatrist's evaluation?

 

[Shikima]

If altruism dies when finances suffer, then it was never really altruism was it?

I agree with you, we're professionals. Professionalism implies a code of ethics and conduct. Lawyers have a duty to represent their clients to the best of their abilities, accountants have their statutory duties, and hopefully we're all aware of our professional obligations. Finances don't change any of that.

Do you really think it's possible to properly evaluate the fitness of a parent in an hour? If not, you can't take the work and still be acting as a physician.

I remember saying some words when they handed me my diploma. I'm pretty sure you do as well. I don't remember there being a clause excusing us if the money wasn't right.

We're persistently evaluating and constantly revising evaluations of those whom we see before us.
And yes there may not be a direct clause which is inclusive/exclusive of monetary reimbursement, but we in the US have the ability to reject particular insurers and/or accept only cash payments. It is a business in the end.

 

[PrideNeverDie]

1 hour is well below the typical evaluation time (preposterously low even?). Is the documentary negatively commenting on the psychiatrist's evaluation?

the documentary was trying to paint a negative picture of how family court works so there is definitely bias. here is the interview:

If altruism dies when finances suffer, then it was never really altruism was it?

I agree with you, we're professionals. Professionalism implies a code of ethics and conduct. Lawyers have a duty to represent their clients to the best of their abilities, accountants have their statutory duties, and hopefully we're all aware of our professional obligations. Finances don't change any of that.

Do you really think it's possible to properly evaluate the fitness of a parent in an hour? If not, you can't take the work and still be acting as a physician.

I remember saying some words when they handed me my diploma. I'm pretty sure you do as well. I don't remember there being a clause excusing us if the money wasn't right.

if all altruistic acts reward the individual with a neurotransmitter payoff, no act can be truly altruistic. that is why people feel good after they do something for others. their bodies are conditioned to release serotonin/dopamine/endorphins in response to helping others. some people even become altruistic junkies. this isn't because of some noble selflessness, but a selfish addiction to their bodies own pleasure hormones. this isn't pre-allo; you aren't fooling anyone. now that you've gotten your fix, can we get back to talking about services provided for an agreed upon fee?

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

We're not supposed to be altruistic. We don't need to explore the biology of it, it isn't relevant.

However, we are supposed to behave professionally. It should be clear that you simply cannot evaluate the fitness of a parent in less time than it takes to do laundry. When you express an interest in work that clearly cannot be done in an ethical fashion you're demonstrating a fundamental disregard for the standards of the profession.

We're not mercenaries with stethoscopes, we're members of a professional guild. Our authority and status comes from the fact that the public can expect us to adhere to our professional standards. When you act like an ass, you undermine all of us.

 

[PrideNeverDie]

We're not supposed to be altruistic. We don't need to explore the biology of it, it isn't relevant.

However, we are supposed to behave professionally. It should be clear that you simply cannot evaluate the fitness of a parent in less time than it takes to do laundry. When you express an interest in work that clearly cannot be done in an ethical fashion you're demonstrating a fundamental disregard for the standards of the profession.

We're not mercenaries with stethoscopes, we're members of a professional guild. Our authority and status comes from the fact that the public can expect us to adhere to our professional standards. When you act like an ass, you undermine all of us.

what guidelines are you using to determine what is or is not ethical? is the time it takes to do laundry the ethically acceptable time to determine the fitness of a person? if so, there are many doctors who evaluate the fitness of a patient in less time than it takes to do laundry. are they demonstrating a fundamental disregard for the standards of the profession?

reread my original post

i stated a possible career option for a psychiatrist that i learned about in a documentary. next, i posted all the information that was presented to me in the documentary (i posted a youtube clip of one of the interviews in a previous post). then i asked if anyone had any experience following this career option as a psychiatrist and if the information was realistic.

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

what guidelines are you using to determine what is or is not ethical? is the time it takes to do laundry the ethically acceptable time to determine the fitness of a person? if so, there are many doctors who evaluate the fitness of a patient in less time than it takes to do laundry. are they demonstrating a fundamental disregard for the standards of the profession?

reread my original post

i stated a possible career option for a psychiatrist that i learned about in a documentary. next, i posted all the information that was presented to me in the documentary (i posted a youtube clip of one of the interviews in a previous post). then i asked if anyone had any experience following this career option as a psychiatrist and if the information was realistic.

Let's not play semantics and let's not trade in bull****.

I read your original post the key points were as follows..
1. 2 day course
2. Thousands of dollars for an hours work
3. Can I profit from this?

If you think you can evaluate an entire family in one hour; you could be far more perceptive than the average bear, or you're an idiot. I don't think you're either. I think you're a scumbag willing to throw good medicine under the bus for a buck.

I want you to listen very carefully and understand this. There are no free lunches in life. If you think you've found a "free" lunch you're most likely eating someone else's meal. That's a marginally acceptable outlook in business, it's an unacceptable outlook in medicine.

The standards of our profession include beneficence, acting in the best interests of our patients. Your proposed course is clearly in your self interest rather than theirs. Medicine is not about making money, it's about medicine. You didn't go to business school, you made the choice to attend medical school. Professional standards don't just exist to protect the public, they also protect the profession. You made the choice to become a physician and that choice precludes predatory practices. The piece of paper on my wall is only worth what the public thinks it is. When you act poorly you dirty us all.

It is truly absurd that I have to explain this to someone who will someday be a physician. As I said before, we're a professional guild and we police ourselves. I'm policing you, fix up.

 

[whopper]

I've been told by everyone I know that do child evaluations to not do it unless you're ready to be falsely accused of molesting children and raping women. They tell me that the problems here are there are going to be two or more parties fighting for custody of children and the likelihood is there will be a loser. The loser will likely be highly ticked off and you're working on an emotional drive that is arguably the strongest in a person because you're dealing with the person's children. That loser is already likely highly dysfunctional given that most reasonable parents will want to avoid the emotional collateral damage of fighting for custody. The ones that don't, expect at least one extremely screwed up individual.

One of my colleagues did this line of work and told me he recorded every single interaction with everyone involved because of what he described as the high likelihood of these people seeking revenge against you if you write an opinion against them.

And that's allegedly a reason why it pays well, cause most doctors don't want to touch such situations with a ten foot pole.

 

[PrideNeverDie]

I've been told by everyone I know that do child evaluations to not do it unless you're ready to be falsely accused of molesting children and raping women. They tell me that the problems here are there are going to be two or more parties fighting for custody of children and the likelihood is there will be a loser. The loser will likely be highly ticked off and you're working on an emotional drive that is arguably the strongest in a person because you're dealing with the person's children. That loser is already likely highly dysfunctional given that most reasonable parents will want to avoid the emotional collateral damage of fighting for custody. The ones that don't, expect at least one extremely screwed up individual.

One of my colleagues did this line of work and told me he recorded every single interaction with everyone involved because of what he described as the high likelihood of these people seeking revenge against you if you write an opinion against them.

And that's allegedly a reason why it pays well, cause most doctors don't want to touch such situations with a ten foot pole.

sounds terrible

 

[hamstergang]

The standards of our profession include beneficence, acting in the best interests of our patients.

When you do an evaluation for the court, who exactly is your patient?

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

When you do an evaluation for the court, who exactly is your patient?

In this case the child. The mental health professional is there to determine the best course of action for the child.

 

[notdeadyet]

The forensic folks can chime in, but in a case like this, there is no patient. The child is the subject or evaluee. "Patient" is avoided in forensic evaluations.


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[Tyrone Slothrop]

The forensic folks can chime in, but in a case like this, there is no patient. The child is the subject or evaluee. "Patient" is avoided in forensic evaluations.


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I think you're right, that word choice wasn't quite correct. What is the right designation though? The child isn't being evaluated so much as the parents are. You're not there acting on behalf of either party, you're there defending the child's best interests. Is there a different term for that situation?

 

[whopper]

There is no patient. The evaluating doctor is supposed to evaluate this as if everyone is not a patient, but are you supposed to state what you believe is in the child's best interests.

The child is being evaluated and so are the parents. Yes, you are correct, it is the parents usually put under the microscope more often than the child but the child too is evaluated because that child may have special needs that are better accommodated by one parent.

Another point of extreme difficulty in these types of cases is the court likely ask the doctor's opinion on who is the better parent on issues that are highly controversial. E.g. if one of the parents is homosexual and the other isn't, does this merit the child go to the straight parent? What about when the parents are of different religious faiths?
And yes it can make a lot of money but it's tough money. You have to critically think these out. Several things about clinical practice become automatic and are less stressful. Most forensic cases require intense critical thinking and while they may pay more per hour, it's tougher work and several docs would rather do something they're used to doing and may find easier. E.g. imagine such evaluations would pay about $500 an hour, but you could land a gig where you get paid $150 a consult. The consult is much less stressful, risk for fallout low, and once it's over, it's usually over. Is it really worth the $500 an hour when you could be sued or need a lawyer for a case where you're falsely accused of raping the borderline mother that's seeking child custody? I think most people would just rather want to do the consults.

 

[Shikima]

Personally I prefer the $500/hour for the critical thinking. Massages the OCPD tendencies nicely.