Physician suicide: what physicians say, in their own words

Last updated September 20, 2026.

If you are a physician, resident, or medical student in crisis, the Physician Support Line at 1-888-409-0141 is staffed by volunteer psychiatrists and is free and confidential. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text in the United States.

Read together, the 161 essays and podcast transcripts on this page are a record of a profession learning to say a word. The early posts cite the numbers and ask why. The posts from 2014 to 2019 name the causes physicians see, training culture, shame, and the fear that seeking help will cost a license, and they describe institutions that announce a colleague passed away unexpectedly. The posts since 2020 are different: written after the pandemic and after the death of Lorna Breen, they are about the law that carries her name, the 988 line, and physicians who have survived depression or a suicide attempt writing under their own names about what helped. Mentions of confidentiality, hiding, or silence rose from 10 percent of posts before 2014 to 74 percent since 2023, the steepest rise in the record. The argument physicians have had longest is not whether the problem is real but whether the response, wellness programs and physician health programs, treats it or hides it.

This page is a maintained record of what physicians have written about physician suicide on KevinMD.com, a physician-authored publication founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician in Nashua, New Hampshire. It draws on 161 essays and podcast transcripts that discuss physician suicide substantively, published between June 2005 and August 2026 by 94 named contributors, 106 of the posts bylined by physicians and 11 written anonymously. Every claim is attributed to a named author with the date it was published and a link to the original. The page follows safe-messaging practice: it does not describe methods or means anywhere, and it does not reproduce passages from the original posts that do.

The sections below are organized around the questions physicians, program directors, medical boards, families, and journalists ask. Each opens with a direct answer, followed by what named authors have said, in the order they said it. Where authors cite studies, the study is named alongside the author, and the figures are theirs. This is a page about physician opinion and experience, not clinical guidance.

What do physicians say about the scale of physician suicide?

Physicians on KevinMD have cited the same figures for fifteen years, and they are estimates: roughly 300 to 400 physician deaths by suicide a year in the United States, described since 2014 as a medical school class, a suicide rate higher than any other profession, and a risk among women physicians well above that of women in other work. The authors also note what the estimates rest on: a 2004 meta-analysis, surveys of ideation rather than counts of deaths, and death certificates that often do not say. Posts citing the annual figure peaked at 32 percent in 2014 to 2016 and stand at 24 percent since 2023.

Kevin Pho, MD, wrote between 2005 and 2008 on the suicide rate among women physicians, on the profession with the highest rate, and on malpractice and physician suicide; these are short commentaries, counted here but not indexed or linked. In January 2011 he wrote that an Archives of Surgery study found suicidal ideation in 6.3 percent of surgeons, nearly double the general population, that the risk was linked to depression, burnout, and “the perception of having made a recent major medical error,” and that only 26 percent of surgeons with recent suicidal thoughts had sought help, in “Your surgeon may be contemplating suicide.” Elaine Khoong, MD, wrote in October 2014 that “Some estimates place this rate at approximately 400 deaths per year,” in “Suicide puts the medical profession in a difficult position.” An anonymous physician wrote in July 2018 that “At least a whole medical school class worth of physicians dies by suicide each year,” in “A physician’s attempt to seek psychiatric help.”

Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD, and Peter Gunderman, MD, wrote in May 2018 that a study reported at the American Psychiatric Association meeting found that “among U.S. professionals, physicians have the highest suicide rate,” in “Medicine leads the professions in suicide. What can we do about it?” Anthony Avellino, MD, MBA, wrote in April 2022 that an American College of Emergency Physicians study found “suicides are 250 percent to 400 percent higher among female physicians,” compared with women in other professions, in “New legislation addresses health care professionals’ mental health needs.” Edward T. Creagan, MD, wrote in March 2023 that female physicians “are three times more likely to die by suicide,” and that in one study each standard deviation increase in burnout was associated with an 85 percent increase in the odds of suicidal ideation, in “What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?” Ali Novitsky, MD, wrote in August 2026 that female physicians have “a 53 percent higher suicide risk than women who are not physicians,” an inversion of the general rule that women outlive men, in “Women physicians die sooner. Hospitals still won’t act.”

Why do physicians say it happens?

Physicians on KevinMD name the causes in layers: depression and burnout, which most name first; a training culture that rewards endurance and reads distress as weakness; perfectionism and the pedestal; shame that the profession directs at its own; and, underneath all of it, the belief that seeking help will end a career. Several authors argue that depression is the wrong frame and that the working conditions are the cause. Posts mentioning stigma rose from 20 percent before 2014 to 44 to 47 percent since 2020; burnout reached 65 percent since 2023, the highest in the record.

Elisabeth Poorman, MD, wrote in August 2016 that a study led by Douglas Mata put depression among residents at about 29 percent, that depression rates increase by about 15 to 30 percent in intern year, the largest increase in medical training, and that “a powerful culture of fear, stigma, and lack of self-care” keeps residents from help, in “To the doctors struggling with depression: You are not alone.” Ami B. Bhatt, MD, wrote in June 2018 that “physician suicide permeates the fabric of American medicine” and asked whether training itself creates the conditions, in “How medical training can affect the physician psyche.” Patricia Celan, MD, wrote in November 2020 that “Even within the medical community, there is a shocking amount of stigma and lack of compassion for colleagues,” and that raising the pedestal is the problem, in “The pedestal that’s killing doctors.”

Pamela Wible, MD, the most frequent contributor on the topic and the physician who has published letters from families of physicians who died, wrote in January 2017 that physicians should “come out of the dark ages and use proper language to discuss the cause of death,” in “Stop saying these 7 shaming words in medicine. Right now,” and in May 2022 that “new docs often practice medicine with poor teaching and supervision, then pretend to have all the answers,” in “Doctors are trained to lie.” Michael F. Myers, MD, a psychiatrist who has treated physicians for decades, wrote in May 2026 of “the tyranny of internal stigma, the damaging stigma directed inwardly by those suffering from mental illness,” in “Doctors with mental illness need our care, not silence.” Ali Novitsky, MD, wrote in August 2026 that physicians “are trained to triage everyone else’s symptoms before their own,” and that women physicians “are triaging on two fronts simultaneously,” in “Women physicians die sooner. Hospitals still won’t act.”

What do physicians say about licensing and the fear of seeking help?

The single most repeated claim in the record is that physicians do not seek help because they believe it will cost them their license, hospital privileges, or reputation, and that the belief is partly justified: most state board applications ask about mental health history, and physician health programs can compel evaluation and treatment as a condition of keeping a license. Posts mentioning licensing or medical boards rose from 20 percent before 2014 to 41 percent since 2023; posts mentioning confidentiality, hiding, or silence from 10 to 74 percent.

Cherilyn Cecchini, MD, wrote in March 2018 of a colleague who “continued to rattle off cases of her colleagues unable to find jobs given their history of anxiety or depression,” and that residents “fear the negative consequences and stigma surrounding the admission of a mental health diagnosis,” in “A stigma no physician can afford.” Sara Reader, MD, MPH, wrote in June 2018 that a 2017 study found “approximately 40 percent of physicians are hesitant to seek treatment for mental health conditions,” because of licensure concerns, in “The physician reluctance to seek mental health treatment.” An anonymous physician wrote in July 2018 from an inpatient psychiatric unit of “trying to return work emails while here and answer complex clinical questions for my own patients” while not permitted grounds privileges, in “A physician’s attempt to seek psychiatric help.”

An anonymous physician wrote in December 2020 that her partners’ silence about her suicidality may have been a perverse version of don’t ask, don’t tell that avoided reporting her to the board, and that “I’m lucky no one reported it, and I still have a medical license,” in “This physician was suicidal. Her partners told her to shut up.” Pamela Wible, MD, wrote in October 2022 that “Most board applications ask mental health questions and threaten license revocation for lying,” and that a physician is “unlikely to be guaranteed 100 percent confidentiality” in ordinary care, in “13 tips for depressed doctors who need confidential mental health care.” In October 2023 she wrote that physicians can be required to travel to “PHP-preferred” facilities for evaluations costing up to $10,000 in cash, with noncompliance reported to the board, in “Surgeon suicides: Unveiling a silent crisis.” Michael F. Myers, MD, wrote in February 2026 about a chief wellness officer who disclosed therapy but hid for thirteen years that she took medication, because colleagues “might think that perhaps I would be less good at being a doctor,” in “Why a chief wellness officer hid her medication use for 13 years.” Timothy Lesaca, MD, wrote in August 2026 that “Patients hide symptoms when they expect disbelief, pressure, or shame,” and that punishing an attempt teaches people to hide the next one, in “Punishing a suicide attempt teaches people to hide it.”

What do physicians say about how institutions respond?

Physicians on KevinMD describe institutions that announce a death without the word, that offer wellness modules in place of time, and that treat a colleague’s suicide as a reputational event. Several argue that naming the cause of death is itself prevention. Posts mentioning institutional response or cover-up rose from 5 percent before 2014 to 23 percent in 2014 to 2016 and stand at 18 percent since 2023; wellness programs reached 18 percent in the same period.

Pamela Wible, MD, wrote in October 2016 that hospitals, clinics, and medical schools cover up physician and student suicides “often with these handy little euphemisms,” such as an announcement that a colleague passed away unexpectedly, in “How medical institutions cover up suicides.” Niran S. Al-Agba, MD, wrote in March 2017 after two female colleagues died within weeks that “Each and every tragic loss of a female colleague should be honored as if we lost a part of ourselves,” in “Physicians must stop losing their own.” Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD, wrote in April 2018 that her institution had “lost a vibrant, talented member of our team to suicide” that month, and that “We are supposed to be the healers; yet sometimes we ourselves are in need of help,” in “Doctors save lives. Let’s start saving our own.” Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA, wrote in May 2022 that he “would have flunked my psychiatry boards” had he not asked a patient about thoughts of self-harm, and asked why the profession cannot say the word about its own, in “Why can’t we say the word, ‘suicide?’” Jodie Green and Kim Downey, PT, wrote in October 2025 that wellness programs, resource guides, and technology fixes “overwhelmingly fail to have impact at the depth and breadth necessary to create sustainable change,” in “Why wellness programs fail health care.”

What do physicians and families who have lived it say?

Since 2016 a small number of physicians have written on KevinMD under their own names about surviving depression or a suicide attempt, and their accounts converge on two points: the silence of colleagues was worse than the illness, and what helped was confidential care and one person who asked. Since 2026 the record also includes a family member writing about the loss of a physician. Anonymous first-person accounts appear throughout; named ones are rarer, and the authors say why.

Elisabeth Poorman, MD, wrote in August 2016 that “my experience with depression made me a much more compassionate physician and colleague,” and to those still struggling, “please know, you are not alone,” in “To the doctors struggling with depression: You are not alone.” An anonymous physician wrote in July 2018 that “I first met with depression way before I was trained as a fully fledged physician,” in “Depression is personal to this physician.” Heather M. Clark, MD, wrote in October 2022 that “It took nine months of scripture, medication, and professional counseling to come through my first major depressive episode,” in “How major depression strengthened my practice and my faith in God.” William Lynes, MD, a urologist, wrote in July 2023 that “I am a survivor of mental illness, physician burnout, and multiple suicide attempts,” and that helplines “allow for discussion without fear of hospital privilege, legal concerns, or licensing issues,” in “Unmasking physician burnout: a survivor’s story and solutions for a healthy medical profession.”

Carrie Friedman, NP, wrote in January 2026 after her father-in-law’s death that “Grief has a familiar vocabulary, but suicide adds a particular cruelty,” and that it leaves survivors “holding both love and unanswered questions, forever,” in “Physician suicide: a daughter-in-law’s story of loss and grief.” Michael F. Myers, MD, wrote in February 2026, introducing physicians’ accounts of their own illness, that “sharing these stories, good and bad, helps others learn, seek help, and feel like they are not alone,” in “Physician mental health and suicide prevention: stories of survival.”

What do physicians say helps?

The interventions physicians on KevinMD describe as helping are specific and mostly small: asking a colleague directly and staying with the answer, confidential care outside the physician’s own institution, the 988 line and the Physician Support Line, and the 2022 federal law named for Lorna Breen. The interventions they describe as not helping are the ones institutions most often offer: wellness modules, resilience training, and physician health programs that condition a license on compliance. Posts mentioning 988 rose from none before 2020 to 18 percent since 2023.

Pamela Wible, MD, wrote in February 2017 that “After years of listening to suicidal and depressed physicians share their suffering with me,” the first thing she says is that they are not alone, in “3 things to say to a suicidal physician.” Leanne Rowe, MD, wrote in February 2019 that when a colleague says they are depressed “a willingness to listen fully can be a powerful skill,” and that the colleague should ask the hard questions a full history requires, in “How physicians should respond to the words, ‘I am depressed’.” Robyn Tiger, MD, wrote in January 2021 that “I personally have lost three physician colleagues to suicide,” and built a self-care program for physicians in response, in “The Rx we were never taught to write.” Erik Vanderlip, MD, MPH, a psychiatrist, wrote in May 2021 that the medical and psychiatric communities awaited the 2020 suicide statistics with growing concern, and that rising distress “has driven a corresponding rise in the use of virtual mental health therapy and psychiatric care,” in “Suicide is never the answer, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Farhan S. Imran, MD, wrote in November 2022 of a hotline volunteer, a patient of his, who told him “I’m the one on the other end of the phone when anybody calls,” in “My 5-minute conversation with a suicide hotline expert.” Rich Parker, MD, wrote in July 2022 that the federal 988 hotline “represents a promising new approach to alleviating the nation’s growing mental health crisis,” in “The new 988 hotline has the potential to transform mental health care, but challenges loom.”

Anthony Avellino, MD, MBA, wrote in April 2022 about the Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, named for the New York emergency physician who died in April 2020 after treating COVID patients, and who “Right after she recovered, she was back at the hospital helping others,” in “New legislation addresses health care professionals’ mental health needs.” Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD, a psychiatrist who works with a state physician health program, wrote in September 2025 that wellness “is a strategic capability that protects patients, stabilizes the workforce, and anchors quality,” in “It’s time to operationalize physician wellness,” and in October 2025, after the death of a colleague, that “The silence is not lifting. The losses are getting closer,” in “Physician suicide prevention: a call to action.” Michael F. Myers, MD, wrote in May 2026 that colleagues should “remind them of their illness speaking, the cognitive distortions and dislodgements,” when a physician feels worthless while ill, in “Doctors with mental illness need our care, not silence.”

How has the physician suicide conversation changed since 2005?

The record has three periods. Before 2014 the posts were few and mostly Kevin Pho’s short commentaries on studies. From 2014 to 2019, when KevinMD published 64 posts on the subject, physicians named the causes, described institutional silence, and Pamela Wible published the letters from families. Since 2020 the posts have been about response: the pandemic, Lorna Breen and the law that carries her name, the 988 line, and physicians writing under their own names about surviving. Mentions of licensing, confidentiality, and hiding have risen in every period, which is the corpus’s own finding about what physicians believe stands between them and help.

Term 2005 to 2013 (20 posts) 2014 to 2016 (31 posts) 2017 to 2019 (33 posts) 2020 to 2022 (43 posts) 2023 to 2026 (34 posts)
Annual figure or a medical school class 20 percent 32 percent 9 percent 9 percent 24 percent
Licensing or medical board 20 percent 39 percent 27 percent 26 percent 41 percent
Confidentiality, hiding, or silence 10 percent 48 percent 52 percent 44 percent 74 percent
Stigma 20 percent 32 percent 33 percent 47 percent 44 percent
Depression 50 percent 74 percent 73 percent 60 percent 62 percent
Burnout 35 percent 35 percent 39 percent 30 percent 65 percent
Residents or students 40 percent 81 percent 67 percent 65 percent 59 percent
Women physicians 25 percent 6 percent 21 percent 12 percent 18 percent
Institutional response or cover-up 5 percent 23 percent 15 percent 9 percent 18 percent
COVID or Lorna Breen 0 percent 0 percent 0 percent 35 percent 35 percent
988 0 percent 0 percent 0 percent 7 percent 18 percent
Wellness programs 5 percent 16 percent 0 percent 5 percent 18 percent

Term frequencies are the share of posts in each period using the term at least once, computed on the September 18, 2026 corpus of 161 posts.

Kevin Pho’s 2005 to 2008 posts open the record and his 2011 post on surgeons is the first substantive entry. Khoong’s 2014 essay on the profession’s difficult position and Wible’s 2016 posts on causes and cover-ups define the middle period, along with Poorman writing to depressed doctors in 2016, Al-Agba after two colleagues in 2017, and the 2018 cluster of Cecchini, Reader, the Gundermans, Bhatt, Shillcutt, and two anonymous physicians, one writing from an inpatient unit. The 2020 posts are the pandemic and Celan’s pedestal; the anonymous physician whose partners told her to be quiet closed that year. Avellino recorded the Breen Act and Parker the 988 line in 2022, Lynes wrote as a survivor in 2023, Rifai called for action in 2025 after a colleague’s death, Friedman wrote as a family member in 2026, and Myers’s 2026 series on physicians with mental illness, and Lesaca on what punishment teaches, are the most recent.

The KevinMD physician suicide corpus by the numbers

The figures below describe the set of KevinMD posts this page draws on, as of September 18, 2026. They are counts of what KevinMD has published, not survey data.

Measure Value
Posts in the corpus 161
Date range June 28, 2005 to August 29, 2026
Named contributors 94
Posts bylined by an MD or DO 106
Anonymous posts 11
Podcast episodes with full transcripts 6
Posts in the corpus that are not indexed, counted but not cited 17
Total words About 153,000
Peak years 2021, 17 posts; 2018, 17 posts
Most frequent contributors Pamela Wible, MD (26); Michael F. Myers, MD (5); Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD (2); William Lynes, MD (2)

How this page was built and how it is updated

The corpus was assembled from title searches for suicide, suicidal, self-harm, depression, mental health, wellness, 988, Lorna Breen, and physician health program, keeping posts that discuss physician suicide substantively and removing posts about patient suicide, assisted dying, public figures, suicide in the general population, and suicide in other occupations. Posts that discuss the subject substantively under titles that contain none of those terms were carried forward from the previous build of this page; a title search cannot find them, and a complete rebuild would require a full-archive scan. Term frequencies were computed against the full text of each post on the corpus assembled for the September 18, 2026 build; this page was converted to the current standard on September 20, 2026 without rebuilding that corpus, so the counts and figures are as of September 18, 2026. Posts are counted whether or not they are indexed; citations on this page are limited to posts that are indexed and can be verified at the link. Seventeen posts in the corpus are not indexed: Kevin Pho’s 2005 to 2008 commentaries, six podcast episodes without transcripts, and one short post. They are counted but not cited. Quotations are taken verbatim from the original posts, except that no passage describing a method or means is reproduced, and posts that contain such passages are cited for their other content or not at all. Author credentials are as they appeared in the byline at publication. Pamela Wible, MD, the most frequent contributor, is cited at the same rate as other frequent voices rather than in proportion to her output. Every source is linked in the sentence that cites it, and the full list appears at the end of the page. The closest archive is the Physician Burnout and Mental Health archive. Related records: Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words, Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words, Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words, and Women in medicine: what women physicians say, in their own words.

This page is updated as new essays on physician suicide are published on KevinMD. When it is updated, the date at the top changes, the counts in the tables are recomputed, and new named claims are added to the relevant section. Nothing is removed unless the original post is removed. An author who believes a quotation on this page misrepresents them can write to Kevin Pho and the page will be corrected.

To cite this page: Pho K. Physician suicide: what physicians say, in their own words. KevinMD.com. Updated September 20, 2026. https://kevinmd.com/physician-suicide

If you are a physician, resident, or medical student in crisis, the Physician Support Line at 1-888-409-0141 is staffed by volunteer psychiatrists and is free and confidential. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text in the United States.

The 38 KevinMD posts cited on this page, in order of publication