Experts address risk of physician suicide.

STUDIES OVER THE PAST 4 DECADES have shown that physicians die by suicide more frequently than nonphysicians. Because of this striking finding, experts with knowledge and experience in areas including medicine, health insurance, and physician licensing recently convened to address factors in the profession that can discourage physicians experiencing depression and other psychiatric conditions from seeking treatment. “The object of getting all of these people together is to see if we can change the culture of medicine,” said cochair Herbert Hendin, MD, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, in New York City. Sponsored by the Milbank Memorial Fund and the AFSP, the meeting included 35 experts who had spent 9 months working in small groups to study key aspects of the problem (including factors in medical student and resident education and health, hospital support for depression treatment for physicians, insurance, and physician licensing) and to identify priorities for further research. The impetus for the effort was publication of a consensus statement from a 2002 AFSP-hosted workshop on depression and suicide in physicians, which emphasized the need to change professional attitudes and institutional policies to encourage physicians to seek help when needed (Center et al. JAMA. 2003;289:3161-3166). Participants from organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the Federation of State Medical Boards, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and a variety of insurance organizations, hospitals, and medical schools were in attendance to review the collected data and come up with ways to take action.