An excerpt from Physicians With Lived Experience: How Their Stories Offer Clinical Guidance (APA Publishing, 2025).

Foreword by Jennifer Breen Feist

Foreword by Jennifer Breen Feist, who lost her beloved sister, Dr. Lorna Breen, to suicide on April 26, 2020. After describing the initial shock and unwanted global publicity of her death, she wrote this:

As the emails, letters, and phone calls continued to pour in, my husband Corey and I made a decision to begin our own storytelling campaign. We told the story of Lorna, of how strong she was and how hard she fought to help those in need. My sister had no mental health history until she got COVID-19; her mental health illness lasted all of three weeks. But in that short time, she made it crystal clear to us that she believed her illness would end her career.

After her death, we wanted to warn health care workers, families, and loved ones that health care carries its own occupational hazards. Lorna’s story has grown over the years to include Scott, Matt, Lisa, Tristan, Will, Mo, and many others, all health care workers who have died by suicide, all of whom we learned about from their families.

As we continue to share our story and theirs, we have met so many others who have survived and thrived, those in the industry who have sought the help or the change that they need, those who have demanded it, those who are willing to share their struggles and their triumphs.

In his work with the nonprofit we created and named after my sister, the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, Corey always talks about the power of storytelling. It is amazing how sharing these stories, good and bad, helps others learn, seek help, and feel like they are not alone. It has created a community, a far-reaching and incredible network of people who all support each other, who respect those who came before and fight for those who have yet to come.

It helped create the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, first-of-its-kind legislation that advocates for support of health workers’ mental health and wellbeing and was signed into law on March 18, 2022. More importantly, the more we share, the more it seems that the stigma and shame lose their power. Through this work and with this storytelling, we hope that one day, the stigma of mental health in health care will be as obsolete as the concept of the scarlet letter in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel.

We are honored to know Dr. Michael Myers and to celebrate his work in this field and his book. Brene Brown has said “shame derives its power from being unspeakable.” Let us all keep telling these stories until there are no more stories to tell.

Foreword by Darrell G. Kirch, MD

Foreword by Darrell G. Kirch, MD, President Emeritus, Association of American Medical Colleges.

On its surface, my career in academic medicine appears to have been successful. I have been honored to serve as acting scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health, the dean of two medical schools, an academic health system CEO, and president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. However, the reality behind these roles is that starting as a severely anxious and sexually abused child, I have had a chronic anxiety disorder interspersed with episodes of severe depression.

Disabling panic attacks almost caused me to leave medical school during my first year, but with the help of a skilled psychiatrist, I fortunately was able to persevere. Until recently, I also was one of all too many physicians who suffer in silence, as vividly described by the personal narratives shared in this book. Even my closest friends and colleagues never knew about my struggles or the treatment that allowed me to function well in demanding roles. Only at this later stage of life have I mustered the courage to talk about my own journey.

Speaking openly about my personal mental health battles, as well as the extraordinary help I have received from a series of clinicians, has become an exceptionally rewarding next phase of my journey. In 2017, it led me to help found the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Wellbeing and Resilience, a broad-based partnership of health care professional organizations working to counter burnout. By acknowledging the short path from burnout to mental disorders, the Collaborative supports the mental health of clinicians of all disciplines.

In a similar vein, in 2022, I partnered in the establishment of Stop Stigma Together, a growing national initiative to combat the pervasive stigma regarding mental health and substance use disorders. As Dr. Myers emphasizes, stigma remains a powerful force in the “house of medicine,” often causing physicians to avoid treatment and tragically costing lives as a result of suicide.

This book is about hope. There is an intrinsic power in narrative, and these compelling stories of struggling and overcoming should give hope to us all. They encourage us to show greater empathy and support colleagues when they need it most. Ultimately, if more of us share the stories of our own mental health journeys, medicine will become an even more inclusive, compelling, and rewarding calling. My hope is that we all seize this moment.

Michael F. Myers is a professor of clinical psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, New York, where he previously served as vice-chair of education and director of training in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is internationally recognized for his work on physician mental health, suicide prevention, ethics, and professional identity across the medical lifespan.

Dr. Myers is the author or co-author of ten books, including Physicians With Lived Experience: How Their Stories Offer Clinical Guidance (APA Publishing, 2025), Becoming a Doctors’ Doctor, Why Physicians Die by Suicide, and The Physician as Patient, Touched by Suicide, and The Handbook of Physician Health, as well as widely cited works on medical relationships, marriage, and divorce. He has published more than 150 articles on topics including suicide, stigma, boundary crossings, ethics in medical education, sexual assault, AIDS, gender issues in training and practice, and the treatment of medical students and physicians.

Dr. Myers has received multiple awards for excellence in teaching and has served on several medical journal editorial boards, including the Bellevue Literary Review, where he has been a board member since 2021. He is a recent past president of the New York City chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and lectures widely throughout North America and internationally. More information is available at michaelfmyers.com, as well as on LinkedIn and X @downstatedoctor.