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You’re Not Alone: Mental health issues during medical school
- Thread starter CaffeinatedSquirrel
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"One study found that, of medical students with depression, only one in four had sought any treatment. Of those considering suicide, less than half sought professional help." - this is so heartbreaking. The fear around it affecting careers has got to go. Not only does it result in the needless suffering and even deaths of medical students and doctors with mental illness - it also means doctors are caring for patients with untreated illnesses. Having compromised health - mental or physical - doesn't allow a doctor to provide the best care to his/her patients. I understand we must meet very high demands and learn ways to do so, but we still operate within the confines of biology like everyone else.
The thing that kills me about this whole issue is that most of the time these illnesses are very treatable. And feeling like one needs to hide a mental illness simply feeds it. Seeking treatment is the commendable, mature, responsible thing for any medical student or doctor to do and we need to make sure we have a system that rewards that rather than punishes it.
I sometimes wonder if there really aren't these horrible consequences to being more open about mental illness, but we don't know because no med students or doctors are willing to "risk it" by talking. The optimist in me kind of believes that if a few people started speaking openly about this, more and more would come out of the woodwork and we would all see that it doesn't have to be such a deep, dark deal. These problems grow in the dark, and we need to shine a light on them to extinguish them.
The thing that kills me about this whole issue is that most of the time these illnesses are very treatable. And feeling like one needs to hide a mental illness simply feeds it. Seeking treatment is the commendable, mature, responsible thing for any medical student or doctor to do and we need to make sure we have a system that rewards that rather than punishes it.
I sometimes wonder if there really aren't these horrible consequences to being more open about mental illness, but we don't know because no med students or doctors are willing to "risk it" by talking. The optimist in me kind of believes that if a few people started speaking openly about this, more and more would come out of the woodwork and we would all see that it doesn't have to be such a deep, dark deal. These problems grow in the dark, and we need to shine a light on them to extinguish them.
D
deleted307836
Of course I agree that anyone experiencing mental health issues should seek help.
However, is there any factual basis to the feared risks of doing this? Everything I've come across on SDN on the issue is rather vague.
However, is there any factual basis to the feared risks of doing this? Everything I've come across on SDN on the issue is rather vague.
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I agree with everything you said, but the culture of medicine seems to be "no mercy for the weak" it all starts with adcoms scrutinizing ever bad grade you ever made. They make it seem as if though they want perfect people to go into medicine, so applicants start hiding their flaws and weaknesses. I know we are all human and nobody is perfect, but we do not want to be seen as vulnerable by our peers our superiors either.
CityLights, that's exactly what I'm wondering myself. My sense of it is that if you wind up in a malignant program and a higher up decides they don't like you, then they might attempt to use info about mental health against you. But there are always going to be crappy people who try to bring others down in all sorts of inappropriate ways, so if it's not that, it could be something else. Everything around this is so hush-hush so it's hard to really know.
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