Why Doctors Face High Suicide Rates

We're going to talk about a very important topic and a very serious topic. We're going to talk about the increasing suicide rate in healthcare. Before I go any further, if you are having suicidal thoughts, or you are suicidal, or you're thinking about taking your life, please take the time to contact one of the suicide hotlines, or get with a mental health professional. This is a serious topic. We're going to dive into today on the Practice Profit podcast. Okay, let's talk about suicide. Pretty sensitive but important topic. But here's the— here's a big reality about it. The numbers are staggering. And it's not talked about in medicine. And I've talked to a number of my clients, over the years who have said that they were so— even though they were a high-income earner, let's say they were making half a million dollars a year or $700,000 a year, $300,000 a year in medicine, and they had accomplished everything that they had set out to be, a top-level surgeon or whatever. Many of them have said that they not only were burnt out but had suicidal thoughts. And the numbers of what's going on in our industry, the facts are staggering. Here's some statistics for you. Okay? An estimated 300 physicians die by suicide every year in the United States. That number is up significantly. Suicide rates for doctors is significantly higher, which I'll talk about here in just a minute. Okay? And we'll talk about Dr. Carrie Cunningham in just a minute, who is on staff at Harvard. We'll talk about her situation. But the suicide rate among male physicians is 1.4 times higher than the general male population. And among female physicians, the relative risk is even more pronounced. It's 2.2 times greater than the general female population. And then the last 28% of residents experience a major depressive episode during training versus 7 to 8% of similarly aged individuals in the US general population. Okay. So It's prevalent among those in the medical field. Now, this is not a topic that a lot of people want to talk about. Why? Well, you are trained to be superhuman, right? You are trained not to make mistakes. That's actually one of the biggest challenges that we face with doctors as they make this transition into being in having their own business is you're trained to not make mistakes and you're trained to basically bury your emotions. Okay? My first wife was an ER nurse and to watch the transformation of her And burying her emotions even deeper after working in the ER for five and a half, six years was astounding because you can't confront them, right? And these things just get buried deeper and deeper, and eventually they're going to come up and bite you in the in the keister. So I want to talk about Dr. Carrie Cunningham, and Dr. Carrie Cunningham is a surgeon. She's actually also a former professional tennis player. She has served as president for the Association of Academic Surgery. Now. I'm working on getting an interview set up with her. If anybody has a contact, be great. Love to talk to her and interview this. But her speech that she gave at her association's annual conference in 2023 candidly shared her personal battle with depression and substance abuse as the need for initiatives to help those in the medical field with mental health issues and suicide within the profession. And as her story goes, one of her friends who was highly respected surgeon took their own life. And the reality is, is that suicide in our industry is not being talked about enough. There's not enough resources available. In many states, the medical boards will view you negatively if you admit that you are having mental illness issues or suicidal thoughts. I have heard stories— I don't know of any directly, but I've heard stories through Networks of doctors having their license suspended because they said that they had suicidal thoughts. Now, I don't know the context of this. This is—I don't have a specific case to give you, right? So please understand that that's you know coming from directly from my client sharing it with they you know friends of theirs. Okay. So this is a major issue. So what do we do about it? Okay. Now, I've recently just posted an episode with regards to the topic of burnout, and I and burnout. And suicide are directly related. Okay, the first thing I would tell you is if you're having suicidal thoughts, please, for the love of God, get medical help. Get professional mental medical help. I will tell you myself, I have had significant periods of my life where the depression was off the charts. For a number of years, I did take Lexapro. I no longer take it. You know, I have learned how to manage that in other ways. Which I'm not going to go into here. There is a lot of studies and a lot of different opportunities out there. But the reality for me is that in my journey and kind of my background and everything like that, the depression is real. Okay. And I used to think that I was weak if I was asking for help. And once I finally found a good therapist and counselor over a couple of years, was really able to help me quite a bit. And look, there's nothing wrong with doing it, quite frankly. In fact, I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it to my clients, quite frankly. You know, we always joke that my work, one-on-one work with my doctors, and I joke that I'm a part-time therapist only because I've spent just a ton of money on my own personal therapy. But it's a real deal, right? So one, get yourself some professional medical help. Do not, do not try to take this on by yourself. The second thing that we caution people against is do not try to self-medicate. Alcohol, drugs, all of these things medically actually only make things worse. I mean, you can, you know, I've heard people talk about, you know, do prayer, do meditation, and I think all of that stuff is great. I don't think there's any one solution to that, but I will tell you, I think what the most important solution is, talk about it. Talk about it. Find someone, find a safe place where you can talk about it. Your industry, this industry that we're in— I'm not a doctor, obviously, but this medical industry that we're in is all about being strong, bearing your emotions, telling everybody that's going to be fine, figuring it out, never making a mistake, being applauded for doing it right, right? And quite frankly, that's just not going to be effective. Okay, so get yourself some help. We're going to be doing some future interviews. We'll be interviewing Dana with SoMo Social Media Doctors, who has talked deeply about this topic. And I'm just going to share some other warning signs that I want you to have. Okay. So if you find yourself talking about suicide, or I wish I was dead, or I wish I hadn't been born, or I'm going to kill myself, or you find yourself maybe acquiring the tools with which to do it with a gun, or stockpiling pills, or Googling how to make a noose or something like that. If you find yourself withdrawing from social contact and want to be left alone, if you're having mood swings, you're preoccupied with death, dying, and violence, feeling trapped or hopeless about a situation, increased use of alcohol or drugs, interrupted sleeping patterns— okay, don't try to handle this on your own. Don't. Just don't. There's no need to. Our world, our society needs you. Okay? And get yourself some space. As you get this handled, then let's talk about creating a different future for yourself within medicine. Okay? There'll be information available for you. There'll be resources available for you. But folks, the facts are this: the more we talk about this, the more people are going to be getting help. The reality is, is that you are in a high-risk industry. For suicide, face the facts, get help. The science is there, the data is there, the resources are there. Get yourself some help. Let's find you a better future. This is Matt. We'll talk to you soon. Take care, everybody.