NONFICTION - April 7, 1991

PSYCHWARD by Stephen Seager, MD (G.P.Putnam’s Sons: $21.95; 288 pp.) . Dr. Stephen Seager was 38 years old when he decided to give up his work as an emergency-room doctor and go back to medical school to become a psychiatrist. He served his internship at Los Angeles’ County General mental hospital--not so affectionately referred to as “The Bin”--and “Psychward” chronicles the year he spent there.

It is a harrowing story. The real-life residents of such a facility lack the charming fecklessness of the boys who inhabited Nurse Ratched’s ward in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” One man will commit murder before the year is out; another, having sought help, will be murdered in front of his idealistic doctor’s eyes. Had Seager been as devoted to improving his writing skills as he was to expanding his medical horizons, this would have been a terrific book.