Rebecca W. Brendel, MD, JD, is a psychiatrist in the Consultation Psychiatry Service and Outpatient Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Brendel is a graduate of Yale College, where she majored in philosophy and earned distinction in the major. She is an honors graduate of both the University of Chicago Law School and Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Brendel completed her medical internship at Brigham and Women's Hospital and her adult psychiatry residency at Mass General and McLean Hospitals. She completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship at Mass General in 2004 and served as the Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University during the 2006-2007 academic year. Dr. Brendel is a board-certified psychiatrist with added qualifications in forensic psychiatry and is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. From 2022 to 2023, she served as President of the American Psychiatric Association.