Army Psychiatrist Specializes In Disaster, Trauma Response

While at the Department of Defense, Ritchie drew attention to health issues that affect women during deployment. These include hygiene, pregnancy screening, earlier Pap testing, increased availability of good medical care, and increased research into women's health during deployments, according to Ritchie's article “Issues for Military Women in Deployment” in the December 2001 Military Medicine.

Ritchie also raised safety concerns in the article about military deployment policies that require women in the same unit as men to sleep in separate locations.

Ritchie said she and another woman physician were put in harm's way due to this policy when their 12-member preventive medicine unit was deployed to Somalia during Operation Restore Hope in 1993.

“The Marine Corps general in charge of the operation had decreed that military men and women would sleep in separate areas,” said Ritchie.“ I wanted to remain with my unit because I thought we would be safer all together. Instead, the female physicians had to walk quite a distance, and one of us had to stand guard outside our tent constantly to prevent theft. At one point, the men were warned about upcoming tensions and probable gunfire. When the bullets flew over the wall, the men retreated to the safety of a walled complex, but since no one warned us, we were stranded outside the tent,” Ritchie recalled.

Ritchie experienced isolation for different reasons during her first overseas tour of duty in South Korea from July 1990 to June 1991. “I was the first female psychiatrist assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division at Camp Casey, near the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. The location was remote and hours from the capital, Seoul,” said Ritchie.

“Although there were other female medical officers there, we were still a minority, and I felt I was living in a glass bowl most of the time.”

She added, “I was also halfway around the world from my family and friends, and communication was mainly by slow mail.”

Ritchie returned to South Korea for her second tour of duty in July 1994 as chief of inpatient psychiatry at the 121st General Hospital in Seoul.

Forensic psychiatry is a long-standing interest of Ritchie's. She achieved“ added qualifications” in forensic psychiatry in 1994.

She has testified for both the defense and prosecution in more than 28 trials in military and civilian courts. Her areas of expertise include competency, reactions to rape, posttraumatic stress disorder, child sexual abuse, and delusional disorder.

“A significant forensic accomplishment was getting the military to change its policy on psychological autopsies. The military no longer requires psychological autopsies be done routinely after all suicides, but only when the [cause of] death is equivocal,” Ritchie said.

This change was important for many reasons including protecting the privacy of the deceased. For example, a reporter obtained sensitive personal information through the Freedom of Information Act from the psychological autopsies of military personnel who committed suicide and published it in a newspaper, Ritchie explained.

Her last clinical position at Walter Reed Health Care System was chief of forensic psychiatry from 1998 to 1999.

Ritchie entered active duty in 1983 through the Health Professions Scholarship Program, which paid for her private medical education. She received her medical degree in 1986 from George Washington University Medical School.

She has been married for10 years to a civilian attorney and has two young children. When asked how she juggles her profesional and family responsibilities, Ritchie noted that it isn't always easy but that she's very fortunate to have a supportive family and access to high-quality child care.▪