July 29, 2026 –– “Your Honor, the defense calls Dr. Stella Rosemary to the stand,” Kathryn Mackey said.

“Dr. Rosemary” wore a quarter-zip with a University of Florida Health logo embroidered across the chest. He raised his right hand to be sworn in by the judge and grinned before delivering testimony to the jury, several of whom donned blue scrubs.

Lake Lindo, M.D., a psychiatry resident playing the role of a pediatrician named Dr. Rosemary, returned to his seat in the front row of the gallery. Whipping around from the prosecutor’s table, Mackey gave him a thumbs up, silently mouthing “You did perfect.”

To immerse residents in forensic psychiatry, Jeena Kar, D.O., organized the June 17 mock trial as an interactive lesson. Kar is an assistant professor in the UF College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and a child psychiatrist at UF Health who completed her residency and fellowship at UF. The mock trial case was heard in the Ultima Morgan & John Morgan Courtroom at the UF Fredric G. Levin College of Law as a collaboration with the College of Medicine.

Unless they pursue a forensics fellowship as their subspecialty, the resident physicians won’t spend their workdays testifying in front of a judge and jury once they complete their residency training. However, most psychiatrists will need to go to court as a witness at some point in their career, Kar said.

“It’s not a question of if it’ll come up –– it’s a question of when,” she said. “So, the more we can equip them, the better.”

Kar and Mackey developed the cross-disciplinary mock trial to engage residents in the roles they might play as physicians in the legal system, expose them to forensic psychiatry as a potential career path and introduce them to foundational concepts they may be tested on during the General Psychiatry Initial Certification Examination.

Mock trials have previously been held at UF, but none involving psychiatry in Kar’s six years here. Even rarer were cases involving child psychiatry, which she discovered when researching mock trials held by training programs around the country. To close the gap in the literature, she drafted a child psychiatry case with the help of Mackey and Bryan “Hobbs” Crockett, senior litigation attorneys for the UF Self-Insurance Programs.

Sandwiched between the work of their day jobs, Kar and Mackey coordinated the planning over Zoom, reworking and revising drafts of the case. Kar attended an American Psychiatric Association conference in May, where she sat in on a forensic psych mock trial. Inspired, she connected with the organizer, who shared his advice and notes.

“It was a really good learning experience,” Kar said. “I was like, ‘Wow, we can really use some of these principles.’”

After six months of preparation, the case was ready to go to trial. A courtroom was secured. Residents and fellows divvied up the roles, including two volunteers, Annie Janus, D.O., and Eric Lian, M.D., who worked closely with Mackey and Crockett to prepare their attorney statements. A volunteer judge, Kevin Dewar, was slated to drive down from Jacksonville.

“State of Florida vs. Jordan Ellis” concerned a fictional adolescent charged with aggravated assault against his neighbor in the county of “Malachua.” In accordance with the M’Naghten Rule, the jury of peers was tasked with determining if the fictional Jordan Ellis was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Robert Averbuch, M.D., the associate director of residency training for the Department of Psychiatry, provided a priming lecture prior to the trial. As a physician who completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship, he explained legal jargon along with the standards for the insanity defense and competency to stand trial. Mackey and Crockett were present to answer any further questions for the residents participating in the mock trial.

“Forensic testimony comes up in all sorts of medical cases, not just medical malpractice,” Averbuch said. “It’s a helpful thing for all medical specialties to be aware of.”

Medicine is collaborative by nature, he continued, and the learning process should reflect that. For instance, having real attorneys offer their insight during Averbuch’s lecture gave attendees a new perspective on the legal matters being discussed.

“In the real world, you don’t sit siloed in your own isolated area of expertise,” he said. “You interact with other disciplines, so the more you can do that in training, the better prepared you’ll be.”

For Lindo, being questioned as a fact witness allowed him to understand the intense pressure his patients may face in the courtroom.

“I learned that it can be very confusing,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of moving parts –– a lot of unknowns, too. For a patient who might have a mental health condition, what is their understanding of the legal process? What is the level of distress they and their families might experience from this process?”

Lindo felt compelled to answer questions immediately without taking time to formulate an ideal response, he said. While being cross-examined, he was pressed to offer an expert opinion on the mental health status of the accused, which extended beyond the initial scope of his character.

Establishing boundaries as a physician in the courtroom is a learned skill, Kar said, as is remaining calm within a charged environment. Even if residents don’t feel ready to take the stand following the mock trial, she supplied them with helpful resources and connections to consult in future scenarios.

Kar is passionate about crafting a varied teaching curriculum for residents and tries to incorporate at least one interactive lesson every month. This year, she constructed an escape room to teach how psychiatric disorders influence sleep patterns and recently hosted a session where residents built neuroanatomy structures from Play-Doh.

Many formal lectures nowadays are recorded and do not require attendance, Averbuch said. Though asynchronous learning can lend itself to those with busy schedules, trainees may lose the depth of understanding that comes from in-person interactions. Like Kar, many educators are turning to unconventional lessons that foster social connection and increased information retention.

“It’s a departure from traditional PowerPoint didactics,” Averbuch said. “It’s much more interactive, much more experiential and more consistent with adult learning styles than just watching a person talk at a podium.”

The actors who participated in the mock trial formed a texting group chat, said Kar, who was delighted to see them bonding over the shared work of preparing for the event.

After the attorneys concluded their closing arguments, the jury split into two groups armed with their notes and case packets –– with one discussion facilitated by Kar and the other by Averbuch.

“I walked in two minutes late and I was going to help lead it, but they were already discussing,” Kar said. “Which I was happy to see, because I’m like, ‘OK, good, they’re into this, and they’re not needing too much prompting,’ but they were already getting to a decision.”

The two groups merged in the jury box after less than 15 minutes of deliberation. Upon their return, the foreman announced their unanimous decision to the judge: The defendant was guilty.

The residents came to their verdict strictly by the criteria of the M’Naghten Rule, rather than injecting emotions into the decision. This came as a surprise to Averbuch, who expected the group to be more sympathetic toward a defendant diagnosed with a mental illness. Instead, the academics were “perfect jurors” who stuck to the rule of law, he said.

The bifurcated trial was condensed into only its second phase to allow more time for residents to discuss the experience. For over half an hour, observations, hypothetical musings and pieces of advice bounced around the court, shrinking the mahogany wood-paneled space.

Later that day, Kar received many texts from residents expressing their gratitude and takeaways from the event.

“Never did I think I’d be in a courtroom during residency,” read one message.

Following a favorable ruling from participants, Kar is already thinking of what type of case to put on next year.