The American Psychiatric Association is telling members that it is a violation of the association's rules to diagnose presidential candidates on whether they are fit for office if they have not personally evaluated the person in question.

In a statement on the association's website, APA President Maria Oquendo reminded members of the organization's "Goldwater Rule," which was named after an incident involving former presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. A magazine surveyed 12,000 psychiatrists about whether Goldwater was psychologically fit to be president. While only about 2,400 responded, nearly half said the candidate was unfit even though they never personally evaluated him.

"This large, very public ethical misstep by a significant number of psychiatrists violated the spirit of the ethical code that we live by as physicians, and could very well have eroded public confidence in psychiatry," Oquendo said.

The Goldwater Rule was put in place in 1973 to avoid a repeat of the incident. As for why it is being brought up now, Oquendo didn't cite any specific examples, but several media outlets pointed to stories in which psychiatrists were asked to diagnose Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's mental state.

"We live in an age where information on a given individual is easier to access and more abundant than ever before, particularly if that person happens to be a public figure," she said. "With that in mind, I can understand the desire to get inside the mind of a presidential candidate.

"I can also understand how a patient might feel if they saw their doctor offering an uninformed medical opinion on someone they have never examined," she added. "A patient who sees that might lose confidence in their doctor, and would likely feel stigmatized by language painting a candidate with a mental disorder (real or perceived) as ‘unfit' or ‘unworthy' to assume the presidency."

Breaking the Goldwater Rule is "irresponsible, potentially stigmatizing, and definitely unethical," she concluded. http://bit.ly/2bgwAJn

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