Dr. Jennifer Tufts is a Massachusetts psychiatrist who was involved in the treatment of Lindsay Clancy before the devastating deaths of Clancy’s three young children in January 2023. The tragedy has understandably generated enormous grief, public attention, and intense scrutiny of the psychiatric care Clancy received.

This petition has a clear purpose:

To stand with Dr. Jennifer Tufts and affirm that she deserves fairness, due process, professional respect, and the support of her medical community.

Supporting Dr. Tufts does not minimize the unimaginable loss of three children. It does not ask anyone to disregard evidence, excuse negligence, or interfere with any legal or regulatory process.

It asks for something fundamental:

That a physician's care be evaluated based on the complete clinical record, the information reasonably available to her at the time, and appropriate medical and psychiatric standards—not simply through the lens of the tragedy that followed.

Medicine Cannot Be Practiced in Hindsight
Dr. Tufts was not the only healthcare professional involved in this patient's care. The patient's treatment involved multiple healthcare professionals, services, and encounters. That broader clinical context matters and should be considered when evaluating the decisions of any individual clinician.

Physicians make decisions in real time.

We evaluate what a patient tells us, what we observe, the history available to us, the symptoms and risks apparent at that moment, and our clinical assessment. Symptoms can evolve. Patients may respond differently to treatment. Information available during one encounter may be different from what becomes known later.

No physician has the benefit of knowing the future.

A catastrophic outcome absolutely warrants careful examination. But the severity of an outcome, standing alone, does not establish that an earlier clinical decision was negligent, inappropriate, or responsible for what subsequently occurred.

Those conclusions require evidence, the complete clinical context, and qualified professional analysis.

Legal Questioning Is Not Medical Judgment
It is difficult to watch highly technical psychiatric decisions be dissected retrospectively through adversarial questioning.

Attorneys have an important role in our legal system: they question witnesses, challenge evidence, and advocate for their respective positions. But legal questioning is not, by itself, a determination of whether a physician met the medical standard of care.

Psychiatric diagnosis, suicide and violence risk assessment, medication management, and clinical decision-making are specialized medical matters. They should be evaluated using the complete clinical record and appropriate psychiatric expertise.

A complicated clinical decision may sound very different when isolated from the circumstances in which it was originally made and reconstructed after everyone already knows the tragic outcome.

That distinction matters.

Questions are not findings.
Allegations are not conclusions.
And hindsight is not a standard of care.

Why Physicians Must Stand Together
For physicians, this goes far beyond one case.

Every physician has treated patients with evolving symptoms, uncertain diagnoses, incomplete information, or unpredictable responses to treatment.

We carry enormous responsibility for the people who trust us with their care. We take that responsibility seriously.

But responsibility is not the same as omniscience.

We cannot guarantee that every treatment will work. We cannot predict every deterioration. We cannot know information that was never available to us. And we cannot guarantee that every patient we treat will ultimately have a good outcome.

Accountability is essential to medicine. So is fairness.

Physician advocacy cannot stop with advocating for our patients, reimbursement, working conditions, or healthcare policy.

We must also advocate for one another.

Standing beside a colleague does not mean blindly endorsing every clinical decision she has ever made. It means refusing to presume wrongdoing before the evidence has been fairly considered. It means insisting that medical decisions be judged according to medical standards and the information available when those decisions were actually made.

And it means remembering the human being behind the headlines.

Dr. Tufts is not simply a name in a court proceeding or a physician answering difficult questions.

She is our colleague.

She has a career, a reputation, a family, and a life beyond this case. She deserves to know that her professional community has not abandoned her during one of the most difficult periods a physician could face.

What Your Signature Means
By signing this petition, we ask that Dr. Jennifer Tufts:

Be afforded fairness and full due process.
Have her care evaluated using the complete clinical record and appropriate medical and psychiatric standards.
Be evaluated according to the information reasonably available when her clinical decisions were made—not solely through retrospective knowledge of the outcome.
Have the broader continuum of care and the involvement of all relevant healthcare professionals appropriately considered.
Not have allegations, courtroom questioning, or public commentary treated as established findings of professional wrongdoing.
Receive the professional and human support of her colleagues while these processes continue.
We also call upon physicians, psychiatrists, healthcare professionals, medical societies, and professional organizations to stand for these principles and to support physicians facing extraordinary scrutiny while the facts and professional standards are being evaluated.

This petition does not ask the public to decide a legal case.

It asks us to remember principles that should matter in both medicine and justice:

Evidence matters.
Context matters.
Due process matters.
Fairness matters.

And standing beside our colleagues matters too.

It Is Time for Physicians to Speak Up
We cannot remain silent and wait until another physician finds herself in the same position.

Physician advocacy means standing together when it matters most.

Today, that means standing with Dr. Jennifer Tufts.

We ask physicians, psychiatrists, healthcare professionals, medical societies, and everyone who believes in fairness and due process to add their names.

Sign this petition. Share it. Speak up. Let Dr. Tufts know that her colleagues are standing beside her.

A devastating outcome deserves serious examination. But a devastating outcome, by itself, should never substitute for evidence regarding the actions of an individual physician.

Dr. Tufts deserves a fair evaluation of her care based on the complete evidence and appropriate professional standards.

And while that process takes place, she deserves something equally human:

She deserves our support.

Dr. Tufts should not have to stand alone. And as physicians, we should not allow her to.

We stand with Dr. Jennifer Tufts.