We should do something about this

[Onix]

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So the first thing people tell me after they learn about me getting into dental school is " oh by the way did you know Dentists have the highest suicide rate?"
each time I hear this, it raises my BP. I just do not understand it?
my girlfriend is studying nursing and she said its in their textbooks too. I mean come on why?? we all study our butt off in undergrad and grad school to get into dental school, we get so excited when we get an interview. we get depressed when we hear we got rejected from X dental school. I know we are all passionate about our field. So what is this "data" that suggest the opposite?
I wish I could do something to wipe this off from our culture. By the way it is only in the American culture. I am persian and there is no such a thing about it.
Any thoughts?

 

[bigstix808]

brush it off...get over it...move on 🙂

chances are that will never go away...sad day i know 🙁 whatever

 

[Predoctalk]

Seems like an easy fix, don't kill yourself...

 

[Impulse155]

Well, when someone says that to you just say its completly false. Dentists used to have the highest suicide rate, only second now to Psychiatrists.
However, profession is not a good way to predict a suicide rate as stated in:

"But experts on suicide say that statistics on its relation to occupation are not clear. There is no national data set on occupation and suicide. Local studies indicate elevated rates in different occupations, but the data usually "turn out to be frail," says prominent suicide researcher David Clark, PhD.

And in fact, points out Ronald Maris, PhD, director of the Center for the Study of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior at the University of South Carolina, "Occupation is not a major predictor of suicide and it does not explain much about why the person commits suicide." http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan01/suicide.html

 

[Babnik]

actually its white male physicians that have the highest suicide rates, second are veterinarians. But all health related high stress jobs have higher than average rates, so don't worry much about it.

What raises my blood pressure is when people say dentists are not real doctors 😡 like in Hangover!!😛

 

[yuppers]

Seriously don't stress it, but I will try to postulate a reason....
In the past, increased pain due to the lack of anesthetics may have now led to dentists being portrayed as pain-causing people. This may lead to patient anxiety about seeing a dentist. And I am sure dentists are aware of peoples' fear and anxiety which may have an affect on them.
This movie clips such as this don't help remove that image of dentists (even though it is funny): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtMizMQ6oM

 

[yuppers]

actually its white male physicians that have the highest suicide rates, second are veterinarians. But all health related high stress jobs have higher than average rates, so don't worry much about it.

What raises my blood pressure is when people say dentists are not real doctors 😡 like in Hangover!!😛

Stu's "wife" (stripper): But that is all in the past now that I married a doctor.
Stu: I'm just a dentist.

Love that movie.

 

[FutureDent020]

Paging Dr. F@ggot

 

[ucla2134]

Stu: My lateral incisor

love the Hangover😍

 

[yuppers]

Alan: It would be so cool if I could breast-feed.

 

[Predoctalk]

You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack... it grew by one. So there... there were two of us in the wolf pack... I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, "Wait a second, could it be?" And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!

 

[Predoctalk]

Alan: Hey guys, when's the next Haley's comet?
Phil : Who cares, man.
Alan: Do you know Stu?
Stu: I don't think it's for like another sixty years or something.
Alan: But it's not tonight right?
Stu: No I don't think so.
Alan: But you don't know for sure? I have this cousin Marcus who saw one he said it blew his mind I want to make sure I never ever miss out on a Haley's comet.

 

[coolslugs]

http://jada.ada.org/cgi/content/full/132/6/786

 

[UCfan]

Stu's "wife" (stripper): But that is all in the past now that I married a doctor.
Stu: I'm just a dentist.

Love that movie.

Me too! It is a great movie!

 

[salem21]

Here's a theory I've heard: dentists spend 8 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish a practice...a huge investment. A lot of times, graduates assume they can go to a big city and be off and rolling. But when they fail to build a patient base, and are rolling debt, they realize they have wasted a ton of time/money for nothing.

 

[PaulieGualtieri]

I thought the high suicide rate was because during the 70's medical school was very difficult to get into, so the rejects went into dentistry as a back up. Later on down the line they realized they hated it and killed themselves. That's what I use as my defense.


PS Hangover is AWESOME!!!

 

[StirrinIt]

when i looked it up i saw the highest suicide rate within the healthcare profession to be among pharmacists! (glorified cashiers)

but my 2 theories on the idea are:

1. the "wanted to be a dr, didnt get in, werent fufilled as a dentist" story someone already said

2. everyone hates coming to see you.. ok i know a little over the top to assume that makes someone kill themself.. but cant brighten up your day to be hated by many...
id say the dental hatred is declining tho as procedures are getting less painful and difficult, as well as the trend of better oral care.


but if you let it "raise you BP" when you hear something this silly, your already on a roll to live up to the stereotype

 

[jlmsg]

Haha, I love the rooftop lone wolf quote from Hangover!

I have heard that this rumor comes from the 1800's when amalgam fillings (containing mercury) started being used by dentists and they were breathing in the fumes of the mercury and getting "mad hatters disease" or heavy metal poisoning.
I have seen studies that show that the amalgam's are safe and I have seen some that claim they release heavy metals into the body. I sure hope they are safe!

If anyone has knowledge on this topic please inform us on the true studies.

Here is a link i found talking about the rumor I have heard: http://www.mercuryexposure.org/index.php?article_id=631

 

[hellodentist]

Dentistry is a well-respected career in my opinion. I really do not care that most people hate it. I have always cared about few people in my life: those who think. These minority can respect dentistry even though they may not like it.

So, be proud !

 

[hellodentist]

Oh and about the suicide rate :

I do not know the data, but with my background in Psychology I can tell that it is a lot more complicated than your career. A lot of people commit suicide and these people are not dentist or do not even have a highly stressful job.

So, Keep up the good attitude and solve your conflicts.

 

[Laceigh]

Perhaps it has to do with one's personality... like type A. I sure hope it's not true, though, and that dentists enjoy their job.

 

[DentalTrain]

I always just wanted to be a dentist because I had the hots for the tooth fairy. Suicide rates don't scare me.

 

[bjhath]

Dentists and high suicide rates is a myth based on poorly conducted studies from the mid-twentieth century and propagated by popular culture. There is no definitive evidence that dentists have a higher suicide rate than the general population.

From the article, "The Suicide mortality of working physicians and dentists" ([SIZE=-1]Occupational Medicine 2008 58(1):25-29) (http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/58/1/25)
[/SIZE]

Results For white female physicians, the suicide rate was elevated compared to the working US population (SRR = 2.39, 95% CI = 1.52–3.77). For white male physicians and dentists, the overall suicide rates were reduced (SRR = 0.80, 95% CI = 0.53–1.20 and 0.68, 95% CI = 0.52–0.89, respectively). For older white male physicians and dentists, however, observed suicide rates were elevated.

Conclusions White female physicians have an elevated suicide rate. Only older white male physicians and dentists have elevated suicide rates, which partially explains the varied conclusions in the literature.

[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE]
Here is a (possible) explanation for the dentist suicide fallacy (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2301/do-dentists-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.