Suicide rate by doctors.

[Retmilleo909]

One wouldn't think that the suicide rate of doctors is high and thought to be higher than the national average in the overall general population.
It's estimated by statisticians that 300-400 doctors commit suicide each year.
Many are faced with the same physical and mental diseases that they're treating their patients for and suffer in silence rather than reveal it to others.
One afternoon I took my daughter to our family doctor and sat in the car listening to the radio while my wife went in with her.
I was surprised when I saw the doctor come from behind his office and started walking around the parking area for 10-15 minutes then went back inside.
I didn't think anymore about it until I heard over the evening news that a doctor had dove off an interstate bridge into oncoming traffic.
The next morning I learned that it was our family doctor.
My wife said he didn't act any differently when he treated my daughter but must've been suffering the tortures of hell on the inside to end his life the way he did.
Being a doctor, I'm sure he knew a lot of easier ways to do it.

[Just KC]

Wow.....that totally sucks!
I wouldn't have thought they had high suicide rate either. That surprises me.

[MacLean]

Doesn't surprise me much - they understand almost as much as cops when it comes to death.

[Pinki]

It is an extremely difficult and demanding lifestyle, particularly for certain specialties. No one really hears the demanding part of it. I'd say that many doctors have no life other than medicine (because of the demands of the job), especially nowadays where everyone wants to sue and people are getting to the point where they think every surgery and every illness has a happy result no matter how bad they treat their own bodies -- and also because of the many people who are drug seekers. I was married to a doctor, lived at the medical school for several years so was really exposed to much of the lifestyle, and have nothing but admiration for them, and you couldn't pay be enough to be one.

[Xiphos]

I'm with Pgrl. I think there is an amazing amount of stress in that profession and I almost wonder why the rate isn't higher. Between all the social and legal pressures to constantly be perfect and that it is your personal fault when anything goes wrong it has to be crushing pressure.