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doctors encounter, yet our culture encourages us to “shake it off ” and
move on. Part of this is due to lack of time, and part of it is due to
fear that taking a step back and attending to our own mental health
would be perceived as a sign of weakness. After all, no physician
wants his colleagues or patients to know that he doesn’t “have it all
together,” or say, “She is losing it.”
We must break down those barriers and pay attention to the
under-recognized, under-reported and under-treated epidemic
of depression among medical students and physicians. The initial
steps are to acknowledge its presence and then implement a sound,
accessible solution to improving self-care and mental health care
for medical students and physicians. One physician in Oregon
certainly has done just that.
In my wanderings on the internet, I came across Dr. Pamela Wible,
a delightfully quirky and passionate family medicine physician in
Oregon. Providing perspective into how quirky she actually is, she
authored “Pet Goats & Pap Smears,” a book of short stories about
how fun it’s been for her to be a physician. I originally learned about
her from her TED talks on Facebook. She has made it her crusade
to push physicians to become happier, healthier and more satisfied
with their jobs in our very broken healthcare system. She uses social media including her own website, op-ed pieces, Facebook and
TED talks as tools to increase awareness of depression and suicide
in medical students/physicians, and to facilitate improvement in
access to mental health care for healthcare providers. She believes
that medical schools, residency programs and the profession of
medicine as a whole do a subpar job of recognizing and addressing
mental health issues among medical students and physicians. Consequently, Dr. Wible has made it her personal crusade to change
that. She even wrote a book addressing suicide in physicians and
is currently working on a documentary on this important issue.
In a Washington Post article, Dr. Wible talks about how the
Lane County Medical Society in Eugene, Oregon established the
first community-led physician wellness program in the nation. It
provides physicians with free 24/7 confidential access to mental
health providers who specialize in physicians’ mental health. Since
its opening, there have been zero physician deaths among those who
utilized the program’s services. This important program removes
the barriers that keep physicians from accessing the care they need.
Our own GLMS has established its own Physician Wellness Program in the last several months. The Society “designed this as a safe
harbor for physicians to address normal life difficulties and physician burnout in a confidential and professional environment.” The
motto is “Take Care of Your Patients By Taking Care of Yourself.”
The program provides free and confidential counseling to all active
GLMS members, and insurance is not billed. To access the wellness
program’s services, please call Rankin and Associates (located at
14
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
7400 New Lagrange Rd Suite 312) at 394-9990 and ask for the GLMS
Physician Wellness Program.
Beyond that, what each of us can do “in the field” is to offer a
listening ear and support for our colleagues who are stressed out,
burnt out, or otherwise struggling with their mental health. I also
propose an animal therapy program specifically for health care
workers in Louisville. It would be a fabulous first step, don’t you
think? Until then, maybe you will see my own dog, “Dr. Drew” as I
like to call him, making pet therapy rounds at the hospital. Wouldn’t
he make you feel better?
I also propose an animal therapy program specifically for health
care workers in Louisville. It would be a fabulous first step, don’t you
think? Until then, maybe you will see my own dog, “Dr. Drew” as I
like to call him, making pet therapy rounds at the hospital. Wouldn’t
he make you feel better?
Dr. McGee is an Internal Medicine PGY-3 Resident in the UofL Internal Medicine Residency Program.
References
Bright, R. & Krahn, L. (2011). Depression and Suicide Among Physicians. Current Psychiatry, 10(4). Retrieved from http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/home /article/depression-and-suicide-among-physicians/b1d152751a0bb7bf9e4c2b5aeb2a416e.html.
Drummond, D. The Lane Country Medical Society Physician Wellness Program. Retrieved from http://www.theha ppymd.com/blog/
the-lane-county-medical-society-physician-wellness-program.
Goebert, D., et al. (2009). Depressive Symptoms in Medical Students
and Residents: A Multischool Study. Academic Medicine. 84 (2), 236241. Retrieved from http://journals.lww .com/academicmedicine/
pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2009&issue=02000&article=00034&type=fulltext.
Major Depression Among Adults (2016). National Institute of Mental
Health Website. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/
statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adults.shtml.
Sinha, P. (2014). Why do doctors commit suicide? New York Times.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/opinion/whydo-doctors-commit-suicide.html?_r=0.
Wible, P. (2014). When doctors commit suicide, it’s often hushed up.
The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.
com/national/health-science/when-doctors-commit-suicide-itsoften-hushed-up/2014/07/14/d8f6eda8-e0fb-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html.