- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
- Messages
- 1,171
- Reaction score
- 3
I read on admssionsconsultants.com that one of the cons of being a doctor is that they have "relatively short life expectancies"....is this true?
Life Expetancy of Physicians?
- Thread starter xylem29
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2006
- Messages
- 454
- Reaction score
- 0
I'm not sure if anyone here can answer that b/c we are all still alive.xylem29 said:
I'm j/k. I'm sure the stress can take a few years off your life, but I live off of this type of "stress." It gets my blood going. Some people who are like that retire and die due to lack of stress. <-- True story.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2002
- Messages
- 685
- Reaction score
- 3
A couple weeks ago in class one of the professors actually mentioned that physicians typically have fewer unhealthy habits on average and live longer. Plus we'll never have to worry about healthcare access problems. I think that's a rumor just like the one saying dentists have the highest suicide rate.
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2006
- Messages
- 319
- Reaction score
- 0
Hallm_7 said:
yea i heard that about dentists too..
as for fewer unhealthy habits.. but what about the lack of sleep that physicians get? or they usually get enough once they have a more well-established career?
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,465
- Reaction score
- 9
Actually, I believe that a shorter life expectancy for physicians has been historically true - I've seen a couple of articles to that effect (nothing I can find on short notice, though). There have been a lot of hazards in the medical profession - physician suicide is a real problem, and the rate is above average. Hopefully, it won't be as true for the next generation of physicians - this is what often-disparaged efforts to "humanize" the practice of medicine are all about - things like having larger call groups so that you take overnight call q5 or q7 rather than q3. Getting woken-up a half-dozen times a night every third night can't be good for anyone's lifespan.xylem29 said:
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
- Messages
- 1,171
- Reaction score
- 3
Non-TradTulsa said:
That's true - if you don't get enough rest or sleep - your life expectancy is shorter. I think there's an optimum hours of sleep one needs and getting more or less is not good for you. But, not all physicians are on call right? Some do get good sleep and have lower levels of stress?
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2005
- Messages
- 267
- Reaction score
- 0
i'm planning to work for 10 years, retire at 40, then actually "live" and not work for the man til 57. Take a year to make peace with everyone to earn myself a ticket to heaven, another year to plan my funeral, 6 months living as a hobo to see how it feels like, 6 months living as the crazy homeless guy who people think is insane because he keeps thinking to himself that he's a doctor. so 60 is the magic number for me.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Messages
- 30,872
- Reaction score
- 10,060
xylem29 said:
I don't doubt this. Folks who work long hours in high stress jobs, with inadequate sleep historically don't live as long. Same would go for all professionals. Also hospital cafeteria food is usually pretty unhealthy, and unless you are a tae kwon do fanatic like Dr. Rey, you will probably not spend adequate time exercising. But what's the point of living a long time doing something you don't enjoy 😀 .
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2006
- Messages
- 308
- Reaction score
- 1
Dr. DeBakey is known for having put in super long shifts and worked for a very long time. He is 97 and was still an active member of the medical community before his recent aneurysm. Even though this is an isolated case and purely anecdotal, its nice to think about someone doing this for such a long time.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Messages
- 30,872
- Reaction score
- 10,060
):( said:
Being up all night in charge of patients who are trying to die against your best efforts is probably pretty stressful. Lots of people feed their kids without taking on this kind of baggage.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2004
- Messages
- 20,793
- Reaction score
- 111
This thread reminds me. I need to find a new dentist.
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2004
- Messages
- 558
- Reaction score
- 4
I imagine that many doctors chose to end their life prematurely when they find out that they have a lethal disease. Considering that cancer accounts for about a fifth to a quarter of deaths this might shave of a few months to years from the average life expectancy.
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2005
- Messages
- 538
- Reaction score
- 1
I think this is bull ****. Half of humanity is high stress. People are working 3-4 crap jobs just to make a living constantly worried about putting food on the table. Lawyers have 80 hour work weeks when they're busy or really type A about their practice, doctors don't HAVE to take the highest stress positions like ER trauma surgeon unless they want to pursue that field. No one is putting a gun to their head. The type who handle that kind of stress well will be the people doing it. I think if you like to be busy not being busy will probably kill you quicker then sitting around all day. Unless you want to get on welfar or move to a cave in Iraq you're going to have to do some work. You're going to have some worries. Maybe you're watching a parent die of cancer, but you're a meter maid. I bet there are a lot of stressful sleepless nights for you too. My old physics professor who was a wonderful guy and a great teacher killed himself a few years back. he was neither a doctor or a dentist. Unless doctors have a special gene that makes them live fewer years, I think this is just some bias in the sampling group when the surveying was done. The lack of sleep doesn't go on forever. I know plenty of doctors with families and lives who are very happy healthy people. I think, if anything, the last poster made a plausible point (although i don't know if its enough to push the statistics) If this frightens you don't go into medicine. Or go into a lower stress profession, but you'll still have to worry about money or etc. etc. etc.
I figure, if anything would shave years off my life, it would be the 4 years I spent doing lab work with evil nasty chemicals. And if 3rd year it turns out I can't live without 8hrs constantly night after (almost) every night...... there are a sampling of specialties out there all with very different lifestyles.
maybe its dermatologists who live the longest? mine works 8-4 three days a week........ i bet if i did that i'd live forever 😉
I figure, if anything would shave years off my life, it would be the 4 years I spent doing lab work with evil nasty chemicals. And if 3rd year it turns out I can't live without 8hrs constantly night after (almost) every night...... there are a sampling of specialties out there all with very different lifestyles.
maybe its dermatologists who live the longest? mine works 8-4 three days a week........ i bet if i did that i'd live forever 😉
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2002
- Messages
- 685
- Reaction score
- 3
I have a feeling that if doctors lived significantly shorter lives than the rest of the public then that would be HUGE news in the medical community. It currently is not. Some doctors do have stressful jobs, but our lives will be stress free in other areas for the most part (financially, social status, basic needs, etc).
A study was published about a year ago saying that roughly 6 hours of sleep is optimal. Any more or less and life expectancy drops. That was a single study, and they definitely couldn't control for all the variables so it's preliminary. However, I think it strongly suggests that 8 hours of sleep isn't the magic number that many think it is. Supposedly the whole idea of 8 hours of sleep came from the unions in the early 1900s. 1/3 of the day for work, 1/3 for home and leisure, and 1/3 for sleep. Hardly scientific, and yet it has stuck in our heads as the gold standard for rest every night.
A study was published about a year ago saying that roughly 6 hours of sleep is optimal. Any more or less and life expectancy drops. That was a single study, and they definitely couldn't control for all the variables so it's preliminary. However, I think it strongly suggests that 8 hours of sleep isn't the magic number that many think it is. Supposedly the whole idea of 8 hours of sleep came from the unions in the early 1900s. 1/3 of the day for work, 1/3 for home and leisure, and 1/3 for sleep. Hardly scientific, and yet it has stuck in our heads as the gold standard for rest every night.
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2006
- Messages
- 216
- Reaction score
- 0
forevalwayzz said:
Dude, Can I Make A Suggestion?
Retire at 40, spend 6 months living as a hobo to see how it feels like, 6 months living as the crazy homeless guy, 1 year to make peace with everyone, and then see where you're at - rock bottom has this way of revitalizing things.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 524
- Reaction score
- 1
Fuel for the fire:
from http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010420.html
Dear Cecil:
I've always heard that dentists have the highest suicide level of any of the medical professions, but I've never believed it. Is there any truth to it? --Terey Allen, Trenton, Michigan
Cecil replies:
This is one of those dodgy things that "everybody knows." And not just the uninformed public, either--dentists themselves believe it. Since the 1960s dental journals have been carrying articles with headlines like "The Suicidal Professions." Dozens of studies have looked at suicide not only among dentists but among health-care workers in general. With few exceptions, research over the past 40 years has found that dentists (and doctors) take their own lives at a higher-than-average rate. But how much higher? To hear some tell it, you'd better not leave these guys in a room alone.
Dentists' odds of suicide "are 6.64 times greater than the rest of the working age population," writes researcher Steven Stack. "Dentists suffer from relatively low status within the medical profession and have strained relationships with their clients--few people enjoy going to the dentist." One study of Oregon dentists found that they had the highest suicide rate of any group investigated. A California study found that dentists were surpassed only by chemists and pharmacists. Of 22 occupations examined in Washington state, dentists had a suicide rate second only to that of sheepherders and wool workers.
But the sheer diversity of results has to make you suspicious. I mean, which is it--dentists, chemists and pharmacists, or sheepherders and wool workers? (What, the bleating gets to them?) And what about psychiatrists? One school of popular belief holds that they have the highest suicide rate.
Read the studies and you begin to see the problem. Suicide research is inherently a little flaky, in part because suicides are often concealed. Equally important from a statistical standpoint is the problem of small numbers: dentists represent only a small fraction of the total population, only a small fraction of them die in a given year, and only a small fraction of those that die are suicides. So you've got people drawing grand conclusions based on tiny samples. For example, I see where the Swedes think their male dentists have an elevated suicide rate. Number of male-dentist suicides on which this finding is based: 18.
But you aren't reading this column to hear me whine about the crummy data. You want the facts. Coming right up. All we need to do, for any occupation of interest, is (a) find a large, reasonably accurate source of mortality statistics, (b) compute suicides as a percentage of total deaths for said group, and (c) compare that percentage with some benchmark, like so:
PERCENTAGE OF DEATHS DUE TO SUICIDE
U.S. white male population 25 and older (1970): 1.5
U.S. white male dentists (1968-72): 2.0 (85 of 4,190)
U.S. white male medical doctors (1967-72): 3.0 (544 of 17,979)
U.S. white male population 25 and older (1990): 2.0
U.S. white male medical doctors (1984-95): 2.7 (379 of 13,790)
(Sources: Vital Statistics of the United States--1970, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-26, "Deaths from 281 Selected Causes, by Age, Race, and Sex: United States, 1970"; death certificates from 31 states, reported in "Mortality of Dentists, 1968 to 1972," Bureau of Economic Research and Statistics, Journal of the American Dental Association, January 1975, pp. 195ff; death reports collected by the American Medical Association, reported in "Suicide by Psychiatrists: A Study of Medical Specialists Among 18,730 Physician Deaths During a Five-Year Period, 1967-72," Rich et al., Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, August 1980, pp. 261ff.; Vital Statistics of the United States--1990, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-27, "Deaths from 282 Selected Causes, by 5-Year Age Groups, Race, and Sex: United States--1990"; National Occupational Mortality Surveillance database, reported in "Mortality Rates and Causes Among U.S. Physicians," Frank et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2000.
I know what you're thinking. Percentages! They're so primitive! What about the Poisson distribution, the chi-square test, the multivariate regression analysis? Not to mention the fact that I don't express suicides relative to 100,000 living population; that I haven't corrected for age distribution, socioeconomic status, etc; and that I couldn't find any current data for dentist mortality in the readily available literature. Sue me. We've got enough here to draw some basic conclusions.
Suicide among white male American dentists is higher than average but not as high as among white male American doctors. (Sorry to limit this to white men, but that's all the data I had to work with.) Don't fret, though. Dentists' death rates from other causes are lower, and on average they live several years longer than the general population. Ditto for doctors.
What's the most suicidal occupation? I won't venture an opinion for the world of work overall, but among health-care types it may well be shrinks. In a study of 18,730 physician deaths from 1967 to 1972 (men and women), psychiatrists accounted for 7 percent of the total but 12 percent of the 593 suicides (source: Rich et al., cited above).
Even more alarming is the rate of suicide among female doctors. A recent study found that 3.6 percent of white female doctors' deaths were suicides--higher than the rate for male doctors and many times the average for U.S. women (0.5 percent for 1990; source: Frank et al., cited above; Vital Statistics of the United States--1990). Women have entered medicine in huge numbers in recent decades, but progress has come at a price.
SOURCES
Vital Statistics of the United States--1990, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-27, "Deaths from 282 Selected Causes, by 5-Year Age Groups, Race, and Sex: United States--1990."
Bureau of Economic Research and Statistics, "Mortality of Dentists, 1968 to 1972," Journal of the American Dental Association, January 1975, p. 195ff.
from http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010420.html
Dear Cecil:
I've always heard that dentists have the highest suicide level of any of the medical professions, but I've never believed it. Is there any truth to it? --Terey Allen, Trenton, Michigan
Cecil replies:
This is one of those dodgy things that "everybody knows." And not just the uninformed public, either--dentists themselves believe it. Since the 1960s dental journals have been carrying articles with headlines like "The Suicidal Professions." Dozens of studies have looked at suicide not only among dentists but among health-care workers in general. With few exceptions, research over the past 40 years has found that dentists (and doctors) take their own lives at a higher-than-average rate. But how much higher? To hear some tell it, you'd better not leave these guys in a room alone.
Dentists' odds of suicide "are 6.64 times greater than the rest of the working age population," writes researcher Steven Stack. "Dentists suffer from relatively low status within the medical profession and have strained relationships with their clients--few people enjoy going to the dentist." One study of Oregon dentists found that they had the highest suicide rate of any group investigated. A California study found that dentists were surpassed only by chemists and pharmacists. Of 22 occupations examined in Washington state, dentists had a suicide rate second only to that of sheepherders and wool workers.
But the sheer diversity of results has to make you suspicious. I mean, which is it--dentists, chemists and pharmacists, or sheepherders and wool workers? (What, the bleating gets to them?) And what about psychiatrists? One school of popular belief holds that they have the highest suicide rate.
Read the studies and you begin to see the problem. Suicide research is inherently a little flaky, in part because suicides are often concealed. Equally important from a statistical standpoint is the problem of small numbers: dentists represent only a small fraction of the total population, only a small fraction of them die in a given year, and only a small fraction of those that die are suicides. So you've got people drawing grand conclusions based on tiny samples. For example, I see where the Swedes think their male dentists have an elevated suicide rate. Number of male-dentist suicides on which this finding is based: 18.
But you aren't reading this column to hear me whine about the crummy data. You want the facts. Coming right up. All we need to do, for any occupation of interest, is (a) find a large, reasonably accurate source of mortality statistics, (b) compute suicides as a percentage of total deaths for said group, and (c) compare that percentage with some benchmark, like so:
PERCENTAGE OF DEATHS DUE TO SUICIDE
U.S. white male population 25 and older (1970): 1.5
U.S. white male dentists (1968-72): 2.0 (85 of 4,190)
U.S. white male medical doctors (1967-72): 3.0 (544 of 17,979)
U.S. white male population 25 and older (1990): 2.0
U.S. white male medical doctors (1984-95): 2.7 (379 of 13,790)
(Sources: Vital Statistics of the United States--1970, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-26, "Deaths from 281 Selected Causes, by Age, Race, and Sex: United States, 1970"; death certificates from 31 states, reported in "Mortality of Dentists, 1968 to 1972," Bureau of Economic Research and Statistics, Journal of the American Dental Association, January 1975, pp. 195ff; death reports collected by the American Medical Association, reported in "Suicide by Psychiatrists: A Study of Medical Specialists Among 18,730 Physician Deaths During a Five-Year Period, 1967-72," Rich et al., Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, August 1980, pp. 261ff.; Vital Statistics of the United States--1990, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-27, "Deaths from 282 Selected Causes, by 5-Year Age Groups, Race, and Sex: United States--1990"; National Occupational Mortality Surveillance database, reported in "Mortality Rates and Causes Among U.S. Physicians," Frank et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2000.
I know what you're thinking. Percentages! They're so primitive! What about the Poisson distribution, the chi-square test, the multivariate regression analysis? Not to mention the fact that I don't express suicides relative to 100,000 living population; that I haven't corrected for age distribution, socioeconomic status, etc; and that I couldn't find any current data for dentist mortality in the readily available literature. Sue me. We've got enough here to draw some basic conclusions.
Suicide among white male American dentists is higher than average but not as high as among white male American doctors. (Sorry to limit this to white men, but that's all the data I had to work with.) Don't fret, though. Dentists' death rates from other causes are lower, and on average they live several years longer than the general population. Ditto for doctors.
What's the most suicidal occupation? I won't venture an opinion for the world of work overall, but among health-care types it may well be shrinks. In a study of 18,730 physician deaths from 1967 to 1972 (men and women), psychiatrists accounted for 7 percent of the total but 12 percent of the 593 suicides (source: Rich et al., cited above).
Even more alarming is the rate of suicide among female doctors. A recent study found that 3.6 percent of white female doctors' deaths were suicides--higher than the rate for male doctors and many times the average for U.S. women (0.5 percent for 1990; source: Frank et al., cited above; Vital Statistics of the United States--1990). Women have entered medicine in huge numbers in recent decades, but progress has come at a price.
SOURCES
Vital Statistics of the United States--1990, National Center for Health Statistics, Table 1-27, "Deaths from 282 Selected Causes, by 5-Year Age Groups, Race, and Sex: United States--1990."
Bureau of Economic Research and Statistics, "Mortality of Dentists, 1968 to 1972," Journal of the American Dental Association, January 1975, p. 195ff.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2004
- Messages
- 3,220
- Reaction score
- 669
Nutmeg1621 said:I'm not sure if anyone here can answer that b/c we are all still alive.
I'm sure the stress can take a few years off your life, but I live off of this type of "stress." It gets my blood going. Some people who are like that retire and die due to lack of stress. <-- True story.
Is that your real pic, nutmeg? 😱 😍 😀
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2004
- Messages
- 926
- Reaction score
- 1
drmota said:
Yeah, I agree, the high suicide rates are probably bringing down the average life expectancy. Doctors need to take better care of their mental health and mental health problems in physicians should not be so highly stigmatized. Also, I know that about 50% of all doctors are married to other doctors...I wonder if there is a correlation with being married to another doctor and poor mental health, suicide and life-expectancy....ooooo I feel a research study coming on.
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2005
- Messages
- 1,204
- Reaction score
- 355
I think the main worry about early death is getting home after being on call, because you're most vulnerable then for accidents, infection, etc.
This life expectancy rate seems to be blown out of proportion and to me, it's a non-issue. Life expectancy is more about lifestyle concerns and how one treats his life. If someone is suicidal and never happy with his life, then the profession really doesn't matter. There are a ton of high stress jobs where people still live long, fruitful lives, and low-stress jobs where people tend to die early.
This life expectancy rate seems to be blown out of proportion and to me, it's a non-issue. Life expectancy is more about lifestyle concerns and how one treats his life. If someone is suicidal and never happy with his life, then the profession really doesn't matter. There are a ton of high stress jobs where people still live long, fruitful lives, and low-stress jobs where people tend to die early.
