Blake Farmer
NPR.org
Originally posted July 31, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
A particular danger for doctors trying to fend off suicidal urges is that they know exactly how to end their own lives and often have easy access to the means.
Wenger remembers his friend and colleague as the confident professional with whom he had worked in emergency rooms all over Knoxville — including the one where she died. That day three years ago still makes no sense to him.
"She was very strong-willed, strong-minded, an independent, young, female physician," says emergency doctor Betsy Hull, a close friend. "I don't think any of us had any idea that she was struggling as much personally as she was for those several months."
That day she became part of a grim set of statistics.
A harsh reality
An estimated 300 to 400 doctors kill themselves each year, a rate of 28 to 40 per 100,000 or more than double that of general population. That is according to a review of 10 years of literature on the subject presented at the American Psychiatry Association annual meeting in May.
The information is here.
