Why is there a high rate of suicide in dentistry?

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DINI

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I am hearing that there is a high rate of suicide in dentistry, especially in dental schools.
As I am planning on replying to dental schools for next year, I am having second thoughts. Anytime I tell someone that I am going to be a dentist, they laugh and say, “Do you know dentists have the highest rate of suicide”. Please share your thoughts.
 
um... because it's not true.
 
just search this, this has been discussed before, too many times if you ask me
 
Ya, every dentist I know loves what they do. I could understand a high suicide rate in applying to dental school though. It definately sucks and is very stressful, especially if you are one of the dime-a-dozen type of applicants like I am.
 
If you are concerned about what other people say about what YOU want to do with YOUR life.
Maybe you aren't really serious about this profession and you SHOULD have a back up plan

bottom line is.. who cares what people think or say. let them laugh all they want.
if you have a goal, go for it!.
 
DINI said:
I am hearing that there is a high rate of suicide in dentistry, especially in dental schools.
As I am planning on replying to dental schools for next year, I am having second thoughts. Anytime I tell someone that I am going to be a dentist, they laugh and say, "Do you know dentists have the highest rate of suicide". Please share your thoughts.
Click to expand...

The suicide-rate thing is a complete myth. We are all educated people, I'm sure it's not that out of the question to do a little research before you just believe what people tell you. The ADA has a great article on this subject. You can find it in under a minute if you try.

Of course that doesn't mean that being a dentist or a dental student isn't stressfull. If you are scared about it maybe you should talk to some dental students and dentists and stop listening to people who propagate lies.
 
haisha ni narou said:
Ya, every dentist I know loves what they do. I could understand a high suicide rate in applying to dental school though. It definately sucks and is very stressful, especially if you are one of the dime-a-dozen type of applicants like I am.
Click to expand...


yeah that's true🙁
 
You would be stressed out as a dentist too. All that money with all that free time to spend it....yeah, it sucks.
 
It's actually not suicide. Dental hygenists and assistants sometimes don't like their bosses much, and they have ways of making it look like it's suicide. ...don't piss off your employees!
 
i heard that the number of dentists killing themselves is way more than the number of dental applicants graduating each year, and that's why it's easier to get into dental school than it is to get into med school, because if they don't let some of the people in with crappy stats there won't be enough dentists to fill the void.
 
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(not serious)
 
CLAERLY that's a lie t man
 
Here is an interesting study about this topic. (Hopefully it attaches correctly)
 

Attachments

Ebull said:
Here is an interesting study about this topic. (Hopefully it attaches correctly)
Click to expand...


GREAT link! (I saved it..haha) Next time any friends/family members/random people make a big deal about "dentist suicide rates" they'll be finding this in their inbox. 😀
 
Total myth...substance abuse amongst dentists on the other hand...

But hey, every field has its issues...who are we to knit pick
 
If a dentist commits suicide it's because there is something messed up with his/her personal life. This is just like any other profession. You see lawyers committing suicide, celebs committing suicide, and so forth. It's not the profession.
 
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Suicide rates for dentists are nothing compared to other professions, like suicide-bombers for instance. I believe their's is something around 99.99%. Very tragic.
 
SanOnofre2002 said:
Suicide rates for dentists are nothing compared to other professions, like suicide-bombers for instance. I believe their's is something around 99.99%. Very tragic.
Click to expand...

😆👍:laugh: I've heard that the death rate for dentists who also moonlight as suicide-bombers is something like 99.9999%
 
An example of my typical conversation

them - "so Slovak27, your parents told me you want to become a dentist"
me - "thats correct, I will be starting dental school next year"
them - "did you know that dentists...."
me to myself - "I !@#$en DARE YOU TO FINISH THAT SENTENCE YOU SON OF A..."


i love the funny responses to this thread..keep it up..we should make a list of smart ass remarks when people tell us we will be suicidal in our profession
 
To the OP...

if you are having second thoughts based on people laughing at you...if you are having second thoughts at all about the profession...my opinion is: do yourself a favour (and perhaps other passionate applicants) and BAIL now.
 
My cousin is a dental hygienist and the dentist she works for committed suicide in their office after-hours. They didn't find him until the next morning. Weird huh?
 
ChaseitHall said:
My cousin is a dental hygienist and the dentist she works for committed suicide in their office after-hours. They didn't find him until the next morning. Weird huh?
Click to expand...


A little gruesome actually. I have always wondered, what happens to the patients? Some of them are surely in the midst of extensive treatment plans. Does a particular dentist just read through their treatment plans and charts and continue as if they were taking over for the old dentist? Or does each patient just find their own new dentist and the new one takes over as they see fit without the help of the treatment plan from the old dentist? This is not specifically concerning suicide, but if the dentist passes away naturally or gets some sort of debilitating illness or injury that prevents them from practicing. Not trying to thread-hijack here, just a question... 🙂
 
DINI said:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/358562/jobs_with_high_suicide_rates.html
Click to expand...

From the article:

"One website, The Straight Dope includes a quote from Steven Stack that says, "Dentists' odds of suicide "are 6.64 times greater than the rest of the working age population..." The website also indicates that male doctors and dentists both are well above average for suicide rates among American workers."

These are the kind of articles that propagate the "dental suicide" issue, which is incorrect. In fact, the information presented in this article is really no better than the information presented in tabloids. Of all the professions they decided to through in a number for the suicide rate for dentists, which is no different than any other health related field. No wonder people think dentists have the highest suicide rate - it's because people read trash like this and believe it.

As dentists I hope that we can value real evidence over conjecture and speculation.

Do us a favor and print out about 20 copies of the article listed several posts above from the JADA. Next time someone tells you that dentists have the highest suicide rate, just hand them a copy of the article and walk away.
 
SanOnofre2002 said:
Suicide rates for dentists are nothing compared to other professions, like suicide-bombers for instance. I believe their's is something around 99.99%. Very tragic.
Click to expand...
:laugh: Hilarious!

When I worked for a company selling dental capital equipment my training included a document about how dentists have low self esteem and need a boost because they are hurting people all day. It's really quite comical to look at esp. now that I am going into the profession.

From what I understand suicide rates were higher (long time ago) because DDSs only practiced two-handed verses modern four-handed dentistry and WERE inflicting a lot of pain on people (prior to advances in anesthesia). This is purely anecdotal though.

"Keep on...keeping on." Frank the Tank
 
If you look at the history of dentistry, many of the founders of the field, supplies we use, discoverer of nitrous as an analgesic and even the patron saint of dentistry all committed suicide. Uncanny huh?
 
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All right, maybe it is a myth, but my boss ( a dentist) actually has told me about this. He says it's because the job of a dentist is cumbersome but also has very little long-term rewards. What I mean is, you get a patient with, lets say, perfect teeth. You have them over the years, and naturally the teeth go bad, you fill them, then they need a root canal, a crown, maybe an extraction. You then get to do their flippers, or full dentures and well, all this work, and effort and you would hope the teeth will be at the same condition as 20 ago when the patient first entered your office, but thats not what happened...so there, that's why they say dentists have a high suicide rate...nothing you do will make the teeth better, it will just postpone the worst.
 
http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/kqm117v1

Might be able to access it through your student library account.

Just summing it up:

It looked at the deaths and census data for 26 states, and reported findings for white female and male physicians. Women physicians had a higher rate of suicide when compared to the general US population, while older physicians and dentists were not far behind. Younger physicians and dentists however, had a lower suicide rate.

Feel free to read it for yourself though.
 
I've been told many times...

"Hey, what do you want to do with your life?"
"I want to become a dentist."

"LAWL UR GONNA KILL URSELF HEHE"
"What?"

"Don't you know? Dentists have the highest suicide rate!"
"Uh..."

Where the heck are they getting the statistics?
 
The history of dentistry is riddled with suicides...the guy who discovered NO, the fella who performed the first dental radiographs in the US, the patron saint of dentistry...its almost comical.

However, pretty sure it no longer holds so you can attempt to put the rumor to rest
 
After reading that young dentists have a lower than normal suicide rate, you have to wonder if the myth is causing people that are not the suicidal type to go into dentistry at a higher rate than suicidal types.

I would never commit suicide so the suicide myth was not a concern for me when choosing this field, but if I was that type, I might have avoided dentistry due to the higher level of stress compared to a typical job.
 
Dentist that commit suicide are already suicidal way before they enter dental school.
 
Dentist that commit suicide are already suicidal way before they enter dental school.

I agree....
 
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Dentist are so rich that they commit suicide.🙄
 
I'm thinking the thirty hour work week and six figure income might make me less stressed than the 80-hour work week and Medicaid/Medicare reimbursements that surgeons get.

(not to mention my goal of attending every major sporting championship event at least once)
 
Keep the myth alive! Scare everybody else why we make out like bandits.:meanie:
 
haisha ni narou said:
Ya, every dentist I know loves what they do. I could understand a high suicide rate in applying to dental school though. It definately sucks and is very stressful, especially if you are one of the dime-a-dozen type of applicants like I am.
Click to expand...
haha you think this is bad... I am not looking forward to boards.
 
Upset dental assistants know how to make murder appear like suicide.
 
SanOnofre2002 said:
Suicide rates for dentists are nothing compared to other professions, like suicide-bombers for instance. I believe their's is something around 99.99%. Very tragic.
Click to expand...

LOL!

Actually, there is some truth to the myth, and plenty of reasons why it may be true. As already noted several times, there is quite a bit of stress related to dentistry, specifically running your own practice. Another factor that no one has mentioned yet is the "success rate" of suicide. Dentists and physicians not only have privileged access to different drugs that could do it, but they also have the education to know how to get it done. You probably haven't heard of many physicians/dentists who attempted suicide unsuccessfully. No offense, but those who aren't successful at suicide either didn't want to do it in the first place, are reaching out for attention, or are so stupid that they truly can't think of an effective way to kill themselves. Kind of like that 1 in 10000 suicide bomber who was unsuccessful, right SanOnofre?
 
Whenever someone tells me about dentists and suicide rates, I always tell them, "Good, less competition for me." A little dark, but I never believed the rumor anyway. I'm sure the suidcide rate maybe higher than a normal person, but highest of all professions? I doubt it. I wouldn't be surprised about high rates of substance abuse, but dentists do have access to lots of nice "legal" drugs that can be alot worse than some of our illegal drugs. I always thought lawyers would have high rates of suicide, I mean, how can alot of them live with themselves for being basically liars and deceivers their whole lives? Might explain their drinking habits, though.
 
CzechSteelPens said:
Whenever someone tells me about dentists and suicide rates, I always tell them, "Good, less competition for me." A little dark, but I never believed the rumor anyway. I'm sure the suidcide rate maybe higher than a normal person, but highest of all professions? I doubt it. I wouldn't be surprised about high rates of substance abuse, but dentists do have access to lots of nice "legal" drugs that can be alot worse than some of our illegal drugs. I always thought lawyers would have high rates of suicide, I mean, how can alot of them live with themselves for being basically liars and deceivers their whole lives? Might explain their drinking habits, though.
Click to expand...


Exactly. The surviving dentist make out like bandits.
 
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