Tag: Gold

Reading of the Week: Physician Suicide – the New JAMA Psychiatry Paper and Editorial

From the Editor

“‘I Couldn’t Do Anything’: The Virus and an E.R. Doctor’s Suicide.”

So headlines a long article on the life and death of a New York doctor who had excelled at medicine – Dr. Lorna Breen oversaw an ER department, and was studying in a dual degree master’s program at Cornell University – but died during the COVID-19 pandemic. The front-page story ran last weekend in The New York Times.

Physician suicide. It’s a weighty topic, one that typically wasn’t discussed much in the past, in part because of the reluctance of physicians to acknowledge their own problems. But how often does it occur and is there a gender gap?

This week, we consider a new paper by Dr. Dante Duarte (of Harvard Medical School) and his co-authors. While previous papers have been published in this area, Duarte et al. are ambitious: they do a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published over the last four decades. In the JAMA Psychiatry paper, they find: “suicide standardized morality ratios were high in female physicians and low in male physicians after 1980…”

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The paper runs with an editorial by Drs. Katherine J. Gold (of the University of Michigan) and Thomas L. Schwenk (of the University of Nevada). Putting the paper in a larger context, they write: “Suicide prevention is a moral responsibility of the entire medical profession.”

And a quick word of welcome to PGY1 residents who are joining us this week as part of our continued partnership with 12 Canadian residency programs from coast to coast to coast.

DG

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Reading of the Week: What Now? CJP on Mental Health of Communities; also, Telepsychiatry Post-COVID (JAMA Psych), and Gold on Stigma (Time)

From the Editor

What now? COVID is part of our new reality. But as we move forward – as a nation that is past peak, and slowly beginning the task of reopening – how do we understand the mental health needs, challenges, and opportunities of the post-pandemic world? This week, we have three selections considering that question.

The first is a new editorial. In The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. Daniel Vigo (of the University of British Columbia) and his co-authors note that “epidemics & pandemics have long been known to impact mental health: The mental problems triggered by viral outbreaks have been described as a ‘parallel epidemic.’” Understanding that subpopulations have different needs, they argue for an approach that focuses on those at greater risk. They make specific recommendations in an impressive paper that includes 52 references.

whatnow

Will our digital moment continue? In the second selection, we look at a new JAMA Psychiatry paper by Dr. Jay H. Shore (of the University of Colorado) and his co-authors, who argue that it should. They note that many clinics and hospitals have embraced telepsychiatry. He argues that, with the right approach, we could have “a golden era for technology in psychiatry in which we are able to harmonize the benefits of telepsychiatry and virtual care while maintaining the core of our treatment: that of human connectedness.”

Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Jessica Gold (of the University of Washington in St. Louis) considers stigma around mental illness. In this time of COVID, she wonders if it will fade further, providing some evidence from social media. She sees opportunity for better: “Instead of looking at the post-COVID-19 mental health future through a lens of inevitable doom, we can, and should, use this moment as the impetus for the changes that mental health care has always pushed for.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: Physician, Heal Thyself? The Gold et al. Study on Docs and Disclosure (and Mental Illness)

From the Editor

If you had depression, would you tell people?

This week’s Reading is a paper from General Hospital Psychiatry that considers just this question. In it, the authors surveyed American female physicians, asking about mental disorders and why they would or wouldn’t choose to get help – and to tell people.

Would you share your mental health history?

This paper is paired with an essay written by Dr. Nathaniel P. Morris, a Stanford resident of psychiatry, who mulls mental illness and disclosure – and has a big disclosure of his own.

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