12 DECEMBER 2025 12 NEWS ausdoc. com. au
12 DECEMBER 2025 12 NEWS ausdoc. com. au
Doctor suicides— the story of a father who lost his son
David’ s tragic death suggests the care culture has yet to change.
Carmel Sparke
BEFORE a young registrar took his own life, his father says fate gave him a 50-50 chance to save him. It involved walking out of a door and turning either left or right.
It was back in December 2020, and the pair had been having lunch in a pub. It was just half an hour after his son, David,* received a call from Newcastle’ s John Hunter Hospital in NSW, wanting to discuss his return to work from sick leave.
David had been visibly distressed after the phone call, his father says in an interview with Australian Doctor.
At one point, he excused himself from the table, saying he was going to the toilet. When he did not return after a few minutes, his father went looking for him.
“ The person at the door of the pub said he’ d left the building,” his father recalls.
“ I turned the wrong way trying to find him. I thought he’ d head for home. I drove around everywhere looking for him.
“ But he had gone the other way out of the pub, found a building site that wasn’ t properly secured, and he went up the scaffolding and just stepped off.“ I took a chance and I took the wrong one.” But he also says his beautiful, bright 30-year-old son would not have ended his life had he not been chewed up by a hospital system that demands so much of its young doctors.
David, his father says, had been pushed to the brink in a year in which he had allegedly been branded a troublemaker for making an incident report about what he believed was substandard patient care.
This, coupled with being overwhelmed by the pressures familiar to many junior medical officers, proved too much.
The long hours, the night shifts, limited opportunities to take annual leave— and occasional bullying attitudes— started to suffocate him.
His father says David had a mood disorder, but it was well managed by his GP.
There have been many stories in recent years of young doctors taking their own lives. The decision by families to talk publicly about events that have torn them apart can be difficult.
‘ Marshmallowgate’
For David’ s father, it is about trying to change the system from within. But the trigger to go public was‘ marshmallowgate’.
It involved a leaked email back in February, written by a roster manager at the hospital who faced staffing issues.
“ I wonder if any of them realise that they are a doctor, and this is what happens,” the email read.
“ Oh, that’ s right … I forgot. Life style [ sic ] before career.
“ God help us in the future. We are going to have a workforce of clinical marshmellows [ sic ]!”
Junior doctors at the hospital were furious. For David’ s father, it showed how little had changed, despite all the health system’ s fine words of wanting to support doctors.
One statistic emerged in October. ABC News said that of the 13 doctor suicide deaths it had verified in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT since 2016, five had died in the Hunter New England Local Health District, where the hospital is located.
“ I would not wish this on my worst enemy— losing your child,” his father says.
“ And if there’ s anything I can do to stop this happening again to anyone else, I will do it.”
He says in the year leading up to David’ s death, his son was treated carelessly, particularly in a return-to-work episode.
In David’ s case, after six years of studying medicine in Sydney, he returned home to Newcastle with dreams of becoming a neurologist. The plans were progressing. As he moved beyond his intern year, he secured a place for specialist training.
‘ I turned the wrong way trying to find him. I thought he’ d head for home. I drove around everywhere.’
COVID-19 pressures
At the beginning of 2020, amid the huge upheavals of COVID-19, he began a second rotation at Calvary Mater Newcastle as an ICU registrar.
It was during his time there that a patient died, an event that was unsettling in itself, but made worse by David feeling he needed to make an incident report about the patient’ s management.
In February, he came home upset, telling his dad he had“ hit the button” on an incident information management system report. The system was meant to ensure reports could be marked as being made anonymously, which David did.
“ But within a few days, he received a phone call.‘ You’ ve got something you want to say about ED, have you?’” his father says.
“ They then questioned his mental health and he was told,‘ You have a black mark on your record. You’ re a troublemaker.’ Which he took to heart, because that was the way he was.”
Australian Doctor has contacted Calvary Mater Newcastle to ensure right of reply. It did not respond directly to a question about whether David had been told he had a black mark against his name. But a statement from the hospital’ s general manager, Roslyn Everingham, stressed the hospital was committed to providing a safe and supportive workplace for staff.
By the fourth quarter of 2020, again, amid the COVID-19 pressures, David was back at the hospital. With the pressures building, his father says he requested annual leave, which was knocked back. The junior doctors were told by email that there was no capacity to provide them with leave.
In November, feeling exhausted and burnt out, he took stress leave.
With this came guilt— because of the extra load he was placing on colleagues.
In mid-December, he was back at the hospital, and on the morning of the last day of his second week, during neurology ward rounds, he was phoned by the roster clerk. His father says David was told he would have to go home and return for a night shift that evening.
“ And he said,‘ I can’ t do that. I’ m not ready. I’ m not well enough for that,’” his father recalls.
The roster clerk then spoke by phone with David’ s GP, who confirmed this request went against his return-towork plan. Nevertheless, David began the shift, starting at 9pm.
“ Just after midnight, something broke in his brain,” his father says.“ I looked at his browsing history later, and you could see, from what he started browsing, something broke.”
The return
David returned home after the 12-hour shift and started sick leave again, but within days he was contacted by the hospital to discuss his return-to-work plan, his father says.
Four days after doing that night shift, the pair went to the pub for lunch.“ While we were in the car going there, his phone rang about 11.30 in the morning. It was the bloody roster person at the hospital ringing him up to discuss his return to work.
“ And he said,‘ I’ m not able to talk about this now. I want to ring my doctor, and I’ ll get back to you by 2.30pm.’
“ But he was really visibly distressed. Later, he got up to go to the toilet, and after about five minutes, he wasn’ t back PAGE 14