Pamela Wible has written an important and fascinating article for WaPo on the phenomenon of doctor suicide. Not doctor-assisted suicide, but doctors committing suicide:
The response was huge: So many distressed doctors (and medical students) wrote and phoned me. Soon I was running a de facto international suicide hotline from my home. To date, I’ve spoken to thousands of suicidal doctors; published a book of their suicide letters; attended more funerals; interviewed hundreds of surviving physicians, families and friends. I’ve spent nearly every waking moment over the past five years on a personal quest for the truth of “why.” Guilt, bullying, exhaustion are big factors. Here are some of the things I’ve discovered while compiling my list and talking to so many people: …
Lots of doctors kill themselves in hospitals. They jump from hospital windows or rooftops. They shoot or stab themselves in hospital parking lots. They’re found hanging in hospital chapels. Physicians often choose to die in a place where they’ve been emotionally invested and wounded.
If our society is going to continue to depend on medicine, then we need to take a closer look at how we conduct the medical business because we currently have a shortfall in many specialties. Do we train doctors properly? What stops people from becoming doctors? I know those in charge of training claim the harsh training produces doctors to be depended on – but what about the wastage of those who wash out? Is this really the best way?
Having read the article, at least some of it suggests that the normal human emotional operating procedures – a phrase I use with specificity – may be the cause of many of these suicides. With that in mind, I wonder how hard it would be to use people without those standard emotional responses as doctors.
Not being a psychologist, I don’t know if sociopath would be the right word for what I am thinking. But not caring that deeply for your patients might be a survival lifeline for doctors.
Or maybe Artificial Intelligence is the way to go here.
