Are We Witnessing The Death of the Modern-Day Physician?

Pamela Wible recently wrote a provocative article on KevinMD regarding physician suicide. In the seminal piece, she conducts “psychological autopsies” on 3 physicians in training who had taken their lives. She searches for answers and suggests solutions for what has become a problem of epidemic proportions. Whereas her focus on the individual is laudable and instructive, I would like to apply her technique to the profession as a whole. While some physicians are committing suicide or becoming addicted to drugs, others are leaving in less-devastating but still consequential manners: early retirement and nonclinical career paths. To many, it feels like a most-celebrated calling is laboring through its last breaths. I stand here today, scalpel in hand, ready to conduct an autopsy of an honorable profession. Are we witnessing the death of the modern-day physician?

See the rest of my post at The Medical Bag.