DOCTORS’ STRENUOUS LIVES

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6815, 19 January 1929, Page 13

DOCTORS’ STRENUOUS LIVES

paying for the last OUNCE OF ENERGY ALCOHOLISM AND SUICIDE “Alcoholism and suicide are notably frequent in doctors, compared with other classes,” said Dr. Graham Little, M.P., speaking at a meeting' of the Royal Institute of Public Health, in London recently.

“As compared with lawyers and clergymen, the medical group has a much higher mortality,”, he said. “Two causes of "death which are unhappily notably frequent in doctors as compared :with other groups aro alcoholism and suicide, -the reasons for this selective frequency may be perhaps inquired into. The doctor, especially the doctor practising in crowded industrial areas, is a much overworked man. He is often obliged to force himself to the utmost to get the last ounce of strength brought into action in an emergency, and the peg of whisky is the quickest and most

effective means of getting that last ounce of energy out of himself. “The doctor also, in poorer and slum districts, is usually an isolated and lonely, as well as a tired man. He is largely cut off from fellowship with his equals. He cannot mix with his patients as men in better environments may do, and moderate but continuous drinking, rather than occasional excesses, constitute the worst type of alcoholism, that of the solitary or secret drinker. The drabness of life under these circumstances is again a compelling factor in producing alcoholic habits.

Prevalence of Suicide “The prevalence of suicide may perhaps be explained by a number of considerations. The doctor who thinks he is attacked by a fatal disease may yield to a temptation to end his troubles which is not present to other persons or even momentary depression of a tired man may thus precipitate a fatal issue which so simple a measure as a good night’s rest would avoid. The means of terminating his existence are always at his l, hand in the drugs which he handles. , “It is also probably true to say that the - medical calling has never been so anxious a one as it is to-day. The profession is’ greatly overcrowded. Far from being the gold mine which popular imagination so fantastically imagines it to be, the consulting room of a doctor Is much more often the shortest road to the cemetery.” A Medical Critic

Dr. Alfred Cox, medical secretary to the British Medical Association, does not agree. “I should not call it a drab life," he said, “I should call is the most interesting life there is. There is no drabness about it except to a man who finds himself in the wrong profession. “To my mind it is an exaggerated way of putting the position when one speaks of the doctor’s consulting room being the shortest route to the cemetery. The strain on a doctor in an active practice is very great, both mentally and physically, but it must be remembered that a man cannot pursue a medical career unless he had pretty good health to begin with. “Roughly speaking, it is true that the temptation to alcohol is great in the case of the doctor on account of missed meals, irregular working hours, and so forth. And there is, of course, easy access to drugs, but I am unable to say whether suicide is notably frequent in doctors. My own view is that, physically, doctors are as 'good as any other class. The life is a trying one, but I should not say that it is an especially easy road to the grave.” 1