Abstract

    Open Access Research Article Article ID: ADA-2-110

    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.

    Keywords:

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

    Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/2455-5460.000010
    CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat

    Indexing/Archiving

    Pinterest on ADA