Professional Profile
Dr NS Puzi
Dr NS Puzi practises as both a psychiatrist and a forensic psychiatrist, providing clinical (therapeutic) and medico-legal psychiatric assessments within the South African legal framework.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied to legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory or legislative matters, and to specialised clinical consultations such as risk assessment, personal injury assessments (e.g. RAF assessments), disability assessments and insurance eligibility evaluations. It encompasses all the issues and functions at the interface of psychiatry and law.
Background
Dr Puzi qualified MBChB at Walter Sisulu University, completed his M.Med in Psychiatry at the University of the Free State, and obtained a Certificate in Forensic Psychiatry (SA) from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He has more than twenty years of post-qualification clinical experience across the public and private health sectors of the Eastern Cape.
He previously served as Head of the Clinical Unit at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital-Mental Health Unit, where he led inpatient and outpatient mental health services and a team of registrars, medical officers and allied professionals. In parallel he held office as Eastern Cape Secretary and later Deputy President of the South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP), Eastern Cape subgroup.
Philosophy of practice
Forensic psychiatry sits at the intersection of clinical psychiatry and the law. Dr Puzi accepts medico-legal instructions on the express understanding that his role is that of an independent expert evaluator whose duty is to the court — not to the instructing party. Opinions are formulated only after careful examination of the available records, direct evaluation where possible, and corroborative collateral information.
Particular care is taken in cross-cultural assessment. Idioms of distress, religious and traditional explanatory models, and language of evaluation all materially affect diagnostic accuracy and are weighed accordingly.
Scope of instruction
Instructions are accepted from plaintiff and defendant attorneys, the State and the defence, the Office of the Family Advocate, curators, insurers, hospital boards and the Health Professions Council of South Africa. Dr Puzi appears in the High Court, Regional Court, Magistrate Courts and specialised tribunals, and provides written opinions.