April Ethics Grand Rounds [Online]

Join us on April 21st, 2026 at 4pm ET, for a conversation about involuntary hospitalization and community-based mental health care, featuring Ashwin Vasan, ScM, MD, PhD in conversation with Department of Psychiatry faculty Stephanie LeMelle, MD, MS.

In New York City, the expanding use of involuntary hospitalization, assisted outpatient treatment (Kendra’s Law), and intensive outreach to individuals with serious mental illness, particularly those experiencing homelessness, has brought renewed urgency to the ethical stakes of psychiatric care.

In this Ethics Grand Rounds, Ashwin Vasan, MD, PhD, Senior Fellow in Health Policy and Global Affairs, Yale University, Operating Partner, Commonweal Ventures, and 44th New York City Health Commissioner, will explore how clinicians and public systems navigate complex decisions around capacity, risk, and involuntary care. Grounded in his experience leading New York City’s health system, as well as the former CEO of Fountain House, he will examine how these decisions are shaped not just by clinical judgment, but by the strength of the systems around them, from infrastructure and coordination to community-based support, and from consideration of both the individual and societal impact of untreated serious mental illness.

The session will situate these challenges within the broader realities of public mental health, emphasizing the need to balance care, safety, and dignity while rebuilding trust and investing in systems that can deliver consistent, human-centered support at scale. It will wrestle with the real-world decisions leaders must make to address the needs of both the individual and society, when stewarding the public trust.

At the center of this conversation are critical questions about how we build systems that can truly support people: how do we balance care, safety, and dignity in moments of crisis? How should clinicians assess capacity when decisions are shaped by broader social and structural conditions? And what responsibility do public systems have to not only respond in emergencies, but to invest in the upstream support and infrastructure that prevent crises in the first place?