I Had Not Realized This Has Become As Acute A Problem As It Clearly Is…

 

This appeared last week:

Calls for a national register to stem the tide of doctor suicides

EXCLUSIVE
By Natasha Robinson

Health Editor

3:21PM June 1, 2024

Leading doctors have called for the introduction of a national register of healthcare worker suicides amid indications that the true rate of doctors and nurses taking their own lives is much higher than statistics indicate.

Anti-suicide campaigner and cardiologist Geoffrey Toogood says the rate of clinicians dying amid unsustainable and growing pressures in health systems is shockingly high.

There are no official national statistics recorded on healthcare worker suicide. Peer-reviewed literature has assessed the rate of doctors’ suicide as being 34 per cent higher than the general population, based on coronial records. However, Dr Toogood believes the figure is higher.

“I have heard of 12 suicides just in the last six months, in different parts of the country, of different ages, and they are just the ones I have heard about it,” Dr Toogood said.

“You can’t put words into the feelings you have when you hear about it.”

Dr Toogood – who founded the charity CrazySocks4Docs to break down stigma and discrimination around mental health ­issues in medicine – said it was crucial to identify risk factors.

A national register could be linked to a service that could ­investigate the causes behind ­clinician suicide when families consent.

“How else are we going to work out the contributing factors?” Dr Toogood said.

“Suicidality is a very difficult subject, it can be very hard to know what has actually tipped that person over the edge at that time, but we really need to work out what is going on.”

The push for health system reform to protect doctors and nurses was given fresh impetus a week ago when Australian Medical ­Association president Steve Robson detailed his own suicide ­attempt 35 years ago and highlighted medicos’ tendency to be enormously self-critical and reluctant to seek help, coupled with sometimes dangerous working conditions amid medicine’s often “toxic culture”.

The article highlighted grave risks to doctors under investigation by the health regulator. The Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency’s chief executive Martin Fletcher responded this week, saying the issue was of the highest importance and staff were working to lessen the intense stigma currently associated with being the subject of a notification, as well as working with Professor Robson to further combat the issue.

“I think it’s incredibly important that we do everything we can to widen the gap between somebody thinking about harming themselves, and acting on that,” Dr Fletcher said.

“The stress that people feel they’re under in the health system is significant. Certainly we hear a lot of concerning stories about people feeling completely desperate. We really welcome a light being shone on this.

“We absolutely acknowledge our part in this.”

Ophthalmologists will join the call to better protect doctors’ mental health at a leaders’ form on Saturday ahead of Crazy­Socks4Docs day next week. The specialty has lost members of its ranks this year to suicide.

“Like all medical communities across the country, ours has not gone untouched, and we have ­experienced the loss of esteemed colleagues and friends to this ­silent pandemic,” said Australian Society of Ophthalmologists president Peter Sumich.

Townsville doctor Sarah Kleinman said the town had lost five doctors in the past two years. “Since I graduated I’ve just come to expect that one or two of my colleagues will die ever year and I’m getting tired of us accepting that that’s just the norm,” Dr Kleinman said.

“It’s time for us to stop having the old standard of ‘physician heal thyself’.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/calls-for-a-national-register-to-stem-the-tide-of-doctor-suicides/news-story/50643a8db92d02264f691c008c43a72f

Doctor suicide is a very complex issue in part aggravated by public expectations of doctors as well as the access doctors have to the tools to carry out a suicidal impulse . Sadly medical training means you are equipped with the knowledge and tools on how to end it all….

The other aspect of this to me is the level of expectation many doctors work under with the risk that on occasion they will feel they have fallen short and act out accordingly.

Doctors are also, as a group, rather less inclined to seek help than others – noting that suicide is a cause of concern in most professions,

A complex and very sad issue!

David.