Why are physicians committing suicide at the rate of one per day?

In 1950, physicians made house calls and usually were smiling a lot. They seemed to enjoy their job, or at least that's how the media covered the culture of lifestyle when your parents were physicians. Today? Actually more male physicians in 1972 committed suicide than in 1995. Are doctors getting happier or better off at the same time it's getting harder to find the right job, even in the health care occupations?

The media touts titles such as The occupation with the highest suicide rate | Psychology Today. For many years now, physicians have had the highest suicide rate compared to people in any other line of work. One website, The Straight Dope includes a quote from Steven Stack that says, "Dentists' odds of suicide "are 6.64 times greater than the rest of the working age population.

Is this surprising? See how the media covers this topic when it comes to happiness in lifestyle, education, and career, let alone job security. See the article, When Doctors Kill Themselves - Newsweek, Apr 19, 2008. The unsettling truth is that doctors have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. Does the media ever ask why?

For a family whose income always had been close to minimum wage, the fantasy in the media would be that doctors would always be able to find a job, but parents of Baby Boomers who had majored in the liberal arts for example, English or art history would be the individuals most likely to find a 'secure' job to last at least a 40-year career span followed by a secure retirement, and a paid-off mortgage.

Actually, according to the media, dentists think they have the highest suicide rate. See The Straight Dope: Do dentists have the highest suicide rate? According to the media, the suicide rate of U.S. physicians is one per day. Male physicians have suicide rates 1.4 times that of the general population, according to the site, Clinical Cases and Images: CasesBlog: High-risk profession.

You can listen to the Dennis Prager show online at Town Hall Radio. Or you can listen on Sacramento radio, at KTKZ, 1380 AM. Check out a former show involving an issue set in Sacramento, at: The stripper and the Christian school - The Dennis Prager Show website. This past show focused on the Capital Christian School in Sacramento, CA when it had been faced with a real dilemma: Should it expel a 5-year-old girl whose mother is a stripper?

Today, July 30, 2010 on the Dennis Prager show heard in Sacramento radio station 1380 AM this morning, the guest speaker on happiness was Dr. Stephen Marmer, MD, a Brentwood psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA Medical School. An important point of the show on happiness also focused on who's not a narcissist. The doctor defined a person who's not a narcissist as someone watches your back, who protects you, even at the cost stepping back on himself. For example, does another person ever protect you in public by covering your back? Or does the person put you down to lift himself/herself up?

That's one way the media covers the topic of happiness. An interesting point that Dennis Prager made was the absence of wisdom in Baby Boomers made in a former show. Prager explained what he meant. There was no absence of technical knowledge in the Boomer generation. He explained what he meant by wisdom--the understanding of life experience and what life teaches one. This is different from technical knowledge, such as the computer revolution.

As an example, Prager mentioned how Boomers might have taught their parents didn't know much, especially if the Boomer was the first generation to attend college and the Boomer parent had little or no formal education, perhaps was an immigrant, or worked hard at menial labor to send children to college. The parent had the moral wisdom based on life experience, on raising a family, on understanding commitment and loyalty, putting bread on the table, and holding the family together in the midst of storms.

The Boomer had the technical training or the university education, but little life experience. If you listen to how the media covers the topic of happiness, you can compare the various radio talk show personalities. To get more answers from others on happiness, you might check out the website, Ask a Psychiatrist Online. There are 17 different psychiatrists online to answer your question.

If you are looking for how media is covering the subject of happiness, check out the website, Happiness. Hear Dr. Kenner's show, The Rational Basis of Happiness® online and on these radio stations. Times of day and days of week vary from station to station. Enjoy Dr. Kenner's short podcasts. Today's Podcast Topic: "What practical books can I read about happiness." Also read the Dalai Lama's book, The Art of Happiness.

In Sacramento, parents of Baby Boomers often see one another at the various senior centers. Are the parents of Baby Boomers, usually in their early to mid-seventies and better, happier than their Boomer children in Sacramento, many of whom are in their mid to late 40s, 50s, and 60s?

The answer usually is yes, if you ask them. As a parent of two Baby Boomers born in the first half and mid 1960s, our generation was able to find jobs that lasted 40 years or more, pay off a house that cost under $25,000 (usually around $11,000 bought in the early 1960s) retire with bills paid off, attend college for under $100 per semester if a state college and about $400 per semester if a private college.

Our first jobs paid $36 a week right out of high school doing clerical work, but we were able to be financially independent and didn't have to return home to parents in adulthood. We didn't need too many college loans because there was the $600 a semester scholar incentive award that didn't have to be paid back, in some towns.

As the parent of Baby Boomers, our life had it so much better than the Boomers and their kids, who can't find jobs right out of high school that could enable them to be financially independent. Our high schools prepared us for office jobs that paid enough to let us buy our first homes, marry at 18, and still work our way through college for six years while working full time as stenographers.

The grandkids and great grand kids may have the courage to take more difficult hard science courses where we took the liberal arts degrees to round out our high school training in operating business machines. We had repetitive work and used the liberal arts to break free of the data entry routine for the 40-year careers stretch. The grand kids have the biochemistry majors and the research grants.

But the media is constantly covering the topic of happiness, especially to Sacramento listeners and readers. And the subject in the media is the culture of happiness. So who's the most happy? It's the person, usually a grandchild now, who got the job most likely to last the longest who poses the least financial risk to his or her employer. The media rarely covers the new medical school graduates and their happiness.

So if you ask the media whether parents of Baby Boomers were happier and had more wisdom than Boomers and their children, what's the answer? It all depends upon how media covers culture. Then there's universal culture and niche culture. Basically, in Sacramento, our over age 70 group is happy. You sometimes can tell by the gusto put into serving the healthier types of food.

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)