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2022

Sarah Simpkins DR Tasha Port was preparing to submit her application for the paediatrician training program when she took her own life in June 2020 .

Medicine had been her passion since high school , and her graduation ceremony in Queensland three years earlier was , as you ’ d expect , special .

“ Tasha was very happy that she had made it — she was going to be a doctor ,” says her mother , Indrani Tharmanason .

She loved her work , but through her life she had struggled with periods of depression . It meant the stress , long hours , night shifts and career uncertainty took a toll . As a result , Dr Port began to lose weight and talk less , becoming increasingly introverted .

So when she moved back to Victoria , the hope was that being closer to her parents and two brothers would provide a safety blanket when the black clouds loomed .

She ended up taking a role in the paediatrics ward at Mildura Hospital . But the talk among the junior doctors was that cracking into the paediatrician training program was going to be tough . And so it proved .

Her mother says it became hard for her daughter to forge friendships and retain social contact outside of work .

Indrani Tharmanason with her daughter Dr Tasha Port at her graduation .

“ Tasha ’ s time off didn ’ t necessarily match other people ’ s time off .

“ Things came up suddenly , making it difficult to make plans for socialising .

“ Transfers from ward to ward , sometimes from hospital to hospital , all fed into that social isolation junior doctors can face .”

As happens so often , none of her colleagues knew about her struggles until they were told she had died .

Ms Tharmanason says her daughter feared that talking about her mental health would affect her career prospects .

Back in 2017 , the tragedy of doctor suicides broke into the national conversation when the family of Dr Chloe Abbott — a fourth-year trainee doctor who also took her life — spoke of the similar pressures she confronted , including that heart-rendering pain of emotional isolation .

In the aftermath , mandatory reporting laws were changed to encourage doctors to seek mental health care without fear of being processed by the regulatory regime . But Ms Tharmanason says too many doctors still keep their experiences of depression and anxiety a secret from those around them .

“ Tasha was absolutely not going to let people know in the work environment that she had struggles .

“[ She thought ] there would be a black mark on her . She thought she wouldn ’ t get into the paediatrics training program .”

She adds : “ For doctors , the fear of seeking help is the fear of losing the thing that they love .”

Ms Tharmanason is suggesting a mandatory buddy or supervisor set-up for all junior doctors .

“ They already have supervisors for whenever they ’ re in the hospital for the technical stuff , but they need someone they can talk to about how they ’ re feeling ,” she says .

“ Where junior doctors are concerned , right from the day they get into the hospital , there needs to be someone working with them .

“ If the goals are not realistic , someone can say , ‘ There are other options … If you don ’ t do this sort of medicine , you are not a failure .’”

Ms Tharmanason says speaking about her daughter ’ s death has been a difficult decision but that she hopes it will help change the culture .

“ I can just say that , every time a doctor dies , it has a huge impact on a very big group of people .”

If this story has raised issues for you , or you are concerned about someone you know , you can call the following support services : Drs4Drs : 1300 374 377 ; Lifeline : 13 11 14 ; Beyond Blue : 1300 22 4636 .

Rachel Carter DOCTORS are facing an explosion of patients requesting ADHD diagnoses and treatments after watching videos on Tik- Tok and other social media platforms , a leading psychiatrist says .

While social media has been credited for raising awareness of ADHD , psychiatrist Professor Richard Harvey said it had also led to “ unrealistic expectations ” about assessments and treatment .

It has been estimated that the number of Australians diagnosed with ADHD has more than doubled to 418,000 since 2018 .

“ You get pressured to prescribe something that they have heard about rather than perhaps what the best available treatment would be for them ,” said Professor Harvey , who is based in Geelong , Victoria .

A Senate inquiry on ADHD services has been told that 3.2 million PBS scripts for ADHD medications were dispensed to 413,000 patients last year — more than double the 1.4 million scripts issued to some 186,000 patients in 2018 .

There is heated debate about whether this represents overdiagnosis or better recognition , but

the point is moot for those at the coalface .

Professor Harvey , who currently receives around 8-9 referrals a day for ADHD assessments , said the situation was “ out of control ” compared with 10 years ago .

He said more and more patients were showing up to appointments armed with their own research and requests for treatment based on what they had seen on the video-sharing platform TikTok .

“ As soon as patients start talking about Adderall , you know it ’ s not available in Australia , so they have picked it up from somewhere else .”

TikTok .

FROM PAGE 1 patient is in the public domain anyway .

Responding to an Australian Doctor survey last week , one doctor wrote : “ There is nothing private or confidential about the information people put up on Facebook . It ’ s there for all to see .”

Of the 144 doctors who responded , 64 % believed googling a patient was not inappropriate , while 30 % thought it was .

So just how many doctors said they had googled patients without their knowledge ?

It was 32 %, with a further 13 % declaring they would prefer not to say .

Slightly more than half ( 52 %) said they had never googled a patient .

The reasons cited for online searches included when there was a potential that the patient was a risk to staff — say with a criminal history of violence towards women .

But one psychiatrist said : “ My patient claimed that they had an alter ego ( a dissociative identity disorder ) and , while in the altered state , was able to create prize-winning art .

“ His artworks were on the internet with photos of him and the Prime Minister .

“ If I hadn ’ t looked it up , I would have thought that the story was too

‘ There is nothing private about the information people put up on Facebook .’

incredible to be true . “ Is it possible that a doctor could have presumed he was psychotic and prescribed an antipsychotic medication ?

“ This is quite different to stalking someone on Facebook .”

A GP said : “ I might google current patients if there is some considerable incongruity between their presentation , their

descriptions and my assessment . “ Sometimes , you get vague descriptions of their occupation that a google search describes with a granularity that sheds light on why you were perplexed by some aspect of behaviour or the history .”

However , Dr Lily Fuzes echoed other doctors ’ comments , arguing that social media simply allowed her to check information on her celebrity patients when she had no idea about their acting or sporting careers .

“ By the way , if this is meant to be a regulatory issue , you would also have to investigate my secretary , my nurse and anyone else in the surgery who recognised them ,” the Sydney GP added .