Elspeth Cameron Ritchie

Dr. Elspeth Cameron "Cam" Ritchie is a long-time Army psychiatrist now serving as the chief clinical officer for the District of Columbia's Department of Mental Health. Before retiring from the Army in 2010, she spent the final five of her 24 years in uniform as the top advocate for mental health inside of the Office of the Army Surgeon General. Before that, she served in other leadership roles including as the psychiatry consultant to the Army Surgeon general at the Department of Defense Health Affairs. Trained at Harvard, George Washington, Walter Reed, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, she is a professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences - the U.S. military's medical school -- in Bethesda, Md., and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. An internationally recognized expert on mental trauma, she has completed fellowships in forensic and preventive and disaster psychiatry. She served around the world for the Army, including Cuba, Iraq, South Korea and Somalia. She has published more than 130 professional articles, mainly dealing with forensic, disaster, suicide, ethics, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women's health issues. Major publications include The Mental Health Response to the 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon, Mental Health Interventions for Mass Violence and Disaster, and Humanitarian Assistance and Health Diplomacy: Military-Civilian Partnership in the 2004 Tsunami Aftermath. She was the senior editor on a Military Medicine text on Combat and Operational Behavioral Health, the Textbook of Forensic Military Mental Health, and the Therapeutic Use of Canines in Army Medicine.