Re “Justices lay out colleges’ liability over suicides’’ (Page A1, May 7): As the director of emergency psychiatric services at a hospital that falls geographically within ambulance range of several private universities in the Boston area, my emergency medicine colleagues and I have concerns about the recent state Supreme Judicial Court ruling that universities may be found liable for student suicides. We anticipate a certain downstream effect of this ruling — that emergency rooms will bear the brunt of evaluating many more college kids.

The typical expectation from campuses in these situations is that we will hospitalize these kids, often against their will. That pressure will now increase.

But there is a legal paradox in that these “kids’’ are otherwise legally adults, and there are strict laws regarding civil commitments. Hospitals are not, and should not be, prisons.

What’s more, there is zero evidence that parentifying the campus decreases suicides. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. We see hundreds, often thousands of college and school-age kids every year in our emergency department. In all my years of specializing in crisis intervention, I have never successfully foreseen a suicide. If the court knows something the rest of don’t, then by all means, please share. Right now, there is no reliable means of “sufficient’’ foreseeability, and the ultimate responsibility for any suicide lies with only one person.

Dr. Elliott B. Martin Jr.

Newton

The writer is director of psychiatric consultation and emergency services at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine.