Physician suicide and depression: Helping doctors heal themselves

Raising awareness among physicians about their own risk of suffering depression may lead to improved care of patients.

Editorial. July 28, 2003.

As early as 1858, English physicians observed that members of their profession had a higher suicide rate than that of the general population.

So notes a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that addresses this disturbing professional reality in the present day. Research confirms that physicians as a group -- especially female physicians -- have an elevated suicide risk.

The link between major depression and suicide is well known. This connection, both in terms of its effect on those who practice medicine and the implications it has for patients, led experts to hold a consensus workshop last October in Philadelphia.

The meeting, sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, resulted in recommendations to treat this longstanding ailment. A consensus statement was published in the June 18 JAMA. The take-home message: Attention to physician depression and the prevention of physician suicide is long overdue.

"The culture of medicine accords low priority to physician mental health," wrote workshop participants. They recommended "transforming professional attitudes and changing institutional policies to encourage physicians to seek help."

It's an effort that tracks closely with the work of the AMA, where an ongoing physician health program has increasingly emphasized issues of wellness and well-being, rather than punitive approaches to impairment. One of its most visible aspects is the regularly held conference on physician health, which explores factors that can lead to depression and other serious problems for doctors.