Physician Death by Suicide: Problems Seeking Stakeholder Solutions

Tracy D. Gunter*

Each year approximately 400 physicians die by suicide in the United States, leaving an estimated one million patients without their physicians [ 1 - 5 ]. Physicians are two to three times more likely to die by  suicide than members of the general population and are more likely to die by suicide than other professionals [ 6 , 7 ]. Compounding the tragedy is  that for decades  we  have  been  aware  that  medicine  is the deadliest profession [ 8 ]. The earliest articles located for this review date to 1897 and 1921 [ 9 ] and the earliest specific data supporting the statement that physicians were at greater risk than other professionals was  a  1927  review of 1921 death  data  [ 10 ].  More physicians in  the United States died by suicide than by motor vehicle accidents, plane crashes, drowning, and homicides combined in  the late 1960’s  [ 11 ] and the statistics could go on. Suffice it to say that the trend remains at best unchanged, and at worst worsening.

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Published on: May 25, 2016 Pages: 20-25

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/2455-5460.000010
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