It's a stunning statistic: 300-400 doctors kill themselves every year in our country. And the number could be higher than that because it is not uncommon for the deaths to be called something other than suicide to preserve the reputation of the physician.
This week, I reviewed a book called "Why Physicians Die by Suicide." It's written by a psychiatrist who specializes in working with doctors who have mental illness. The book really opened my eyes to the inner workings of becoming and being a physician. True, every vocation has its rigors and stresses but most of us don't, as physicians say, bury our mistakes.
As patients, it isn't our job to take care of our physician. It is his or her duty to care for themselves. We can, however, be more compassionate in our thoughts. I know I am guilty of expecting my doctors to have the answers and when they don't, I get discouraged. Medicine is not an exact science and our doctors don't know everything even though they frequently act like they do. They are trained to behave that way and this is part of the problem.
Add the mental illness of depression or bi-polar disease and the shame doctors feel for needing to seek treatment, and you have the recipe for disaster. The book does offer some solutions. For us, however, I think it is mostly being aware and giving doctors a little more leeway to be human just like us.
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