physician suicide factors

Physicians commit suicide at higher rates than the general population, and higher than any other profession-group... though dentists commit suicide as much or even more often than MDs.  And readers of this blog may have already noticed this article  on physician suicide factors, published almost nine years ago in Psychology Today.  Or you may have learned from other sources about the factors contributing to high physician suicide rates.  It seems to be popular, for example, to blame electronic documentation requirements, which leaves one wondering why the suicide rate is not startling for all the many, many other people in the US who spend their whole day at a computer.

See, I think we can all agree that physicians have stressful work lives and that this impinges on their personal lives.  And we can all probably also agree that we want that person who's helping ensure our health and wellbeing is thinking clearly and feeling well enough to care for others.

But I've been wondering lately about whether all of us "experts," researchers, and opinionators might be overpathologizing physicians, adding even more to their stress.  Yes, it's stressful, demanding work.  And we need to turn out focus on ways to improve the wellbeing of physicians and other health care professionals.  But, let's be honest: many people have stressful, demanding work, starting not too many steps away with the nurses working in the same organizations as the physicians.

One big factor in physician suicide is that physicians are far more knowledgeable about ways to die surely and not too painfully...because they are more knowledgeable about medicines.  While firearms are most commonly used in the general population, medicines are the method of choice among physicians.

I would like to know about the rate of suicide attempts by profession.  This might be a clearer indication of physicians' overall wellbeing than suicide success, since the latter is also an indicator of physicians' superior knowledge.  If anyone knows of a good source of information on rates of suicide ATTEMPTS by profession in the US, please point  me to it. 

Meantime... Please Be Mindful of the need to Take Care of Yourself: bio-physically, psycho-emotionally, socio-relationally, and religio-spiritually.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/200908/the-occupation-the-highest-suicide-rate