Doctober - exercising for doctors’ mental health

Doctors experience mental illness at a rate at least twice as high as the general population. The suicide rate is 4 x the rate of other professions.

Some reasons for this include: stigma and discrimination in the workplace (huge problem), fear of mandatory reporting to our licensing bodies and the believe amongst our profession that any doctor working less than 60 hours a week is working “princess hours”.

Add to this the fact that we are in stressful jobs, often on call, can’t turn out mobiles off and sometimes, particularly in private practice, can’t afford to take holidays. We usually do not have the time for “self-care”.

I want to lift the lid on this and help break down the barriers to doctors seeking professional help.