Med school is tough. Between the crazy influx of information, long hours of study trying to keep up, many many cups of coffee and the all-consuming, exhausted sleep that follows, often it becomes hard to maintain a social life. It becomes really easy to isolate oneself from people, to hide behind a laptop and piles of books, until one day you sadly realise you’re better acquainted with the grooves on your desk than actual people.
“If more people talked about what leads to suicide, if people didn’t talk about it as if it was shameful, if people understood how easily and quickly depression can take over, then there might be fewer deaths.”
-The wife of Dr Andrew Bryant, Brisbane gastroenterologist who committed suicide three weeks ago
I have only ever admitted to three people in the world the deepest extent of the depression. All three of them forced it out of me, asked me at points where I was too weak to lie, to scared not to admit it, terrified of how they would react but even more terrified of what I could do to myself if I kept it in any longer.
“Can you chase those bloods?” “Yes, but what’s your management plan for this patient?” “Have you even looked at the VIA practice questions yet?” These questions alone are enough to raise the cortisol levels in any budding young medical student!
While some of these are asked tongue-in-cheek, one question still remains — why are we as medical students, and eventual working doctors, so prone to work-related stress and anxiety?
The Auricle 