Doctors' Health - Who Cares for the Carer's?

World Health Day has highlighted depression as a leading cause for concern this year with an 18% increase over the last 10 years to 2015 and my big question is who cares for the carers?

My guests today were Dr Maxine Szramka and Dr Clayton Spencer - two powerhouses in their field. Todays subject was highlighting the major concerns around doctor suicide, not just the outcome but how we have come to suicide being the solution.

It is a very sobering show and one which spawns longer and deeper conversations.

This show struck me about being greater than a 'doctors' issue, this is about front-line workers, emergency service workers, medics, police, fire and rescue. People who are told to deal with something and then get on with it, watch someone die, move on. We are only just coming to an understanding about post traumatic stress disorder, about the consequences of not dealing with the pain we see and experience every day in our work.

We are born from love, it would not hurt to remember that and be able to see that in each other, to give us a benchmark to build self-care as a foundation of support both in our day to day and in the systems that are set up to support people, the carers, so they can in turn, support the patients.

There is a system feeding this end result and I have every trust that the system does not want the outcomes it is getting, it just needs to know the way to address it. The first step is acknowledging that the current system is not set up to support the people who have put their hands up to support humanity.

Resources

Dr Maxine Szramka's blog - Dr Maxine Speaks
World Health Organization -World Health Day
Major Public Health program for aged care
​Doctors Hours 24 hours in the life of a Junior doctor 
AMA article on doctors working unsafe hours