Mark Komrad: Progressing from Scholarship to Activism for a Cause

The issue of physician assisted suicide can cause people to fervently pick one side or another. For some, their belief is so strong that they are moved to do things they may not have done in their career beforehand.

One of those people is Mark S. Komrad, MD, Ethicist in Residence for Sheppard Pratt Health Systems in Baltimore. During the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Atlanta, Komrad led an effort in the organization's congress to pass a resolution against allowing similar laws on the topic to be passed in this country which would allow mental illness to be an acceptable criteria for a patient to end their lives with the help of a doctor. Komrad said this is the most important issue he has tackled in his career and the one which has angered him the most, driving him to work for this cause more than any he has in the past.