Causes Of Physician Suicide

Pager goes off for the third time in less than ten minutes due to the seventh code blue call of the night. From the start of medical school to the end of a physician's career the mental health of physicians is continuously challenged by multiple factors that lead to physician suicide. Physician suicide has become one of the biggest problems that the health care is encountering. Many variables contribute to physician suicide which include stress, sleep deprivation, and societies standards. Stress contributes to physician suicide due to the workload, diagnosing, and medical mistakes. Sleep deprivation contributes by physicians working long hour shifts that result in failure of basic cognitive skills. Societies standards influences physicians suicide by putting standards on physicians making it harder for physicians to get help for the factors that contribute to physician suicide as they will be seen as weak. …show more content…
The combination of stress, sleep deprivation, and the perception of super human qualities have resulted in a high rate of physician and medical student suicide. In order to better our medical students and practicing physicians the National Institutes of Health should be more willing to help physicians and medical students balance these factors in their professions along with bringing light to the continuing problem of suicide to inform others about this on going problem to help others