Varma Penumetcha, MD, FAPA

Dr. Varma Penumetcha, MD, FAPA, is a forensic psychiatrist licensed in Oregon. He completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship in the Law and Psychiatry Division at Yale University and his adult psychiatry residency at St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia, Michigan. He is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in forensic psychiatry and general psychiatry, and by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in addiction medicine.

He has ten years of experience in forensic psychiatry. Five of those years have been in a supervisory role overseeing the care of complex psychiatric patients.

He currently practices as a supervising psychiatrist at a state psychiatric hospital. He oversees the psychiatric care delivered on high-security units and supervises a team of psychiatrists and nurse practitioners. His clinical work has centered on high-acuity units serving patients found guilty except for insanity and patients undergoing competency restoration. He supervised one such unit through its shift from a predominantly guilty-except-for-insanity population to a predominantly competency-restoration population.

In his independent forensic practice, attorneys and courts retain him for litigation-related evaluations. His private caseload spans competency, criminal responsibility, civil and disability questions, and violence risk.

From 2017 to 2021, he held a faculty appointment as an assistant professor of psychiatry. For two of those years he served as associate director and director of a forensic psychiatry rotation for psychiatry residents. He currently teaches practitioner onboarding on forensic testimony at a state psychiatric hospital and teaches Guilty Except for Insanity case law at a forensic psychiatry fellowship.

He has presented research at the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the World Psychiatric Association, and his work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and Current Psychiatry Reports.

He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Cascade Forensic Psychiatry is built to grow. Dr. Penumetcha conducts every evaluation himself today. As the caseload supports it, he intends to add forensic psychiatrists to the practice. Each will practice under their own name and author their own reports.

A current curriculum vitae is available on request. Use the inquiry form to request it.