Helping Doctors Get Help
Every year, roughly 400 doctors and medical students die from suicide. To put this in perspective, there are roughly 100 medical students in a medical school class, and schooling takes four years: each year in the United States, we lose an entire school worth of doctors to suicide. For some perspective: there are 141 medical schools and 31 osteopathic schools in the country; educating students takes time, money, and a tremendous amount of resources, and we have a doctor shortage. Losing a school worth of physicians each year is an awful thing. Furthermore, surveys have shown that roughly 30% of medical students have significant symptoms of depression, a percentage notably higher than the general population.This seems a bit odd: medicine is still a profession that is held in esteem. People work for years to get into medical school and it's a very competitive process. Those who have made it are, for the most part, lucky. Academically, they are the cream of the crop: motivated, hardworking, organized, driven, and among the few who get the privilege of working in a field where you help people and earn good money. And as someone who treats patients, I will tell you that it truly is an honor to be a doctor and a psychiatrist; I am grateful for the career I've been able to have and for the flexibility and diversity it has afforded me as both a healer and writer. So why the high rates of suicide and depression? The blame has ...
Source: Shrink Rap - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
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