About Felix Torres, MD, MBA, DFAPA
Felix Torres, MD, MBA, DFAPA is the Chief of Forensic Medicine at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Health and Specialty Care System’s State Hospital System. He is the Minority/Underrepresented Representative Trustee to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Board of Trustees and the Co-Chair of the APA Board of Trustees Structural Racism Accountability Committee.
Dr. Torres is a Diplomate of The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry and a Distinguished Fellow of The American Psychiatric Association (APA). He is the former Vice Chair of Acute Care Services and the former Director of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Services for the Department of Psychiatry at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.
Dr. Torres is a Special Advisor to the American Psychiatric Association on the United Nations. In this role, he tracks issues in the United Nations relevant to the work of the APA while ensuring the inclusion of mental health in UN development goals and agendas.
Dr. Torres received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, with a concentration in Behavioral Neurosciences, from Yale University. He graduated magna cum laude from Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. Dr. Torres completed his general psychiatry residency and forensic psychiatry fellowship at Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers in New York City. He has been certified as a provider of Electroconvulsive Therapy by Northwell Health's Zucker-Hillside Hospital. Dr. Torres also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School with a double concentration in Healthcare Management and Leading Organizations. He has been inducted to the Beta Gamma Sigma International Business Honor Society.
Dr. Torres is licensed in the States of Texas, New York, Florida, and California. He has served as Inpatient Unit Director at Maimonides Medical Center, Psychiatric Clinical Coordinator at NYU Langone – Brooklyn, Acute Care Psychiatry Chief and Supervisory Psychiatrist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, consulting psychiatrist for mental health clinics in the New York City area, and forensic psychiatry consultant to the Office of Court Administration of the New York State Unified Court System. Recognized as a psychiatric and forensic psychiatric expert by several courts throughout the United States, Dr. Torres has consulted and testified in hundreds of cases on mental health and addiction issues.
Dr. Torres is a member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the American Association for Community Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry, the Association of LGBTQ+ Psychiatrists (AGLP), the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, the Florida Medical Association, the NGO Committee on Mental Health at the United Nations, the Southern Psychiatric Association, the Texas Academy of Psychiatry, and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians.
Dr. Torres served as Assembly Representative from the New York County Psychiatric Society to the APA from 2012 to 2019, where he focused on issues relating to global and cultural psychiatry, addressing the delivery of psychiatric care to underserved populations, highlighting the impact of global climate change on mental health, fighting the stigma surrounding mental illness, and supporting the fourth strategic initiative of the APA: Diversity. He served as Secretary of the New York State Psychiatric Association from 2018 to 2019 until his move from New York to Texas.
Dr. Torres is a former member of the APA Council on Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities (CMMH/HD), where he collaborated with the drafting of the Stress & Trauma Toolkits for Treating Hispanics and Undocumented Immigrants in a Changing Political and Social Environment. During his membership on the APA Council on Communications, he was an active member of the workgroup on social media and remained the Council on Communications’ liaison to the CMMH/HD. Dr. Torres sits on the Board of Directors of the APA Political Action Committee.
Dr. Torres contributed the chapter “Help-Seeking Behavior and Access to Mental Health Care” to the book “The American Latino: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Culture and Mental Health Issues.” He has recently contributed sections on the disparate impact of global climate change on the mental health of minority populations and on global warming and criminality for a chapter on climate change and mental health in an upcoming public psychiatry book.
Dr. Torres is the founder and president of New York Forensic Psychiatry Consulting, P.C. He also serves as a mental health contributor to local, national, and international media outlets.
Dr. Torres speaks English, Spanish, French, and Italian.