Posted by SLS on May 3, 2011, at 23:32:00
In reply to Re: School and psychiatric illness, posted by desolationrower on May 3, 2011, at 23:25:41
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/806779-overview
On average, the United States loses the equivalent of at least one entire medical school class each year to suicide (reliable estimates are as many as 400 physicians).
Sadly, physicians globally have a lower mortality risk from cancer and heart disease relative to the general population, presumably relating to self-care and early diagnosis; however, physicians have a significantly higher risk of dying from suicide, the end stage of an eminently treatable disease process. Depression is a leading risk factor for myocardial infarction in male physicians. Although, as a profession, physicians seem to have heeded their own advice about avoiding smoking and other common risk factors for early mortality, they are decidedly reluctant to address a significant risk of both morbidity and mortality that disproportionately affects them.
In all populations, suicide is usually the result of untreated or inadequately treated depression coupled with knowledge and access to lethal means. Depression is at least as common in the medical profession as in the general population, affecting an estimated 12% of males and 18% of females. Depression is even more common in medical students and residents, with 15-30% screening positive for depressive symptoms. Because of stigma, self-reporting likely underestimates the prevalence of the disease in both populations.
Perhaps due in part to knowledge of and ready access to lethal means, completed suicide is far more prevalent among physicians than the public, with the most reliable estimates ranging from 1.4-2.3 times the rate in the general population. More alarming is that, after accidents, suicide is the most common cause of death among medical students. Although female physicians attempt suicide far less often than their counterparts in the general population, completion rates equal those of male physicians and, thus, far exceed that of the general population (2.5-4 times the rate by some estimates). A reasonable assumption is that underreporting of suicide as the cause of death by sympathetic colleagues might well skew these statistics, so the real incidence of physician suicide is probably somewhat higher.
The most common psychiatric diagnoses among physicians who complete suicide are affective disorders (eg, depression and bipolar disease), alcoholism, and substance abuse. The most common means of suicide by physicians are lethal medication overdoses and firearms.
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.
poster:SLS
thread:984211
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110502/msgs/984491.html