Medical Student Distress and the Risk of Doctor Suicide

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/health/views/07chen.html

I saw this thought-provoking piece in the New York Times last week and wanted to share it with you. It sheds light on the high rate of suicide and unaddressed mental illness among the U.S. physician community, a truly under-examined problem within our hospitals and medical schools. The article noted that physicians have a far higher suicide rate than their peers (40 percent for men and a jaw-dropping 130 percent for women), an unhappy commonality that physicians share with other health care workers such as dentists and psychiatrists. Apart from the expected workplace stressors that we might assume would contribute to the problem, social pressures and worries about career advancement seem to provide powerful disincentives for seeking treatment and may drive doctors to cope with mental illness through substance abuse and other "dysfunctional behaviors."

Disproportionate rates of untreated mental illness among the physician community reaches far beyond their social circles. They present serious implications for quality and efficiency of patient care, and establish an unhealthy precedent for future physicians to follow. As future managers, policymakers and administrators within the healthcare system, we will likely inherit the challenge of dealing with a physician culture that discourages healthy coping mechanisms for its most vulnerable members. How can we develop policies and intra-hospital programs that foster a more treatment-friendly mentality that can cope with the frequent--and inevitable--workplace stressors facing the physician community?