Leanne Rowe, MD

Leanne Rowe is a physician in Australia and is the co-author of Every Doctor.

Prioritizing mental health for doctors and families

Conditions and Diseases

February 8, 2024

In 2022, the World Health Organization released the World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All, which recognizes the critical importance of mental health to everyone, everywhere – including doctors and their families.

The consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and other major issues such as climate change, global conflict, and economic downturns are continuing to have a big impact on the mental well-being of many parents …

Senior doctors must take greater leadership on the psychological safety of early career colleagues

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

January 4, 2024

“A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession.”

During the 20th century, these famous words from Dr. Martin Henry Fischer (1879-1962) were often quoted to students on their first day of medical school with a veiled threat to “toughen up.” Unfortunately, remnants of this outdated “get over it or get out” attitude in …

Addressing the enormous scale of work-related burnout and mental injury in doctors

Leanne Rowe, MD

Conditions and Diseases

December 23, 2023

When a 24-year-old laborer’s apprentice used a chainsaw without training, they sustained a jagged laceration through their left quadriceps. When I saw them 12 months later in my general practice, their laceration was well healed. However, they remained unemployed because their untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was aggravated on their return to work when their boss put a chainsaw in their hands to help …

How to manage narcissistic doctors

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

May 8, 2019

Anyone can exhibit narcissism or narcissistic personality traits or types from time to time in different forms from mild to severe. When doctors are under stress, they can “act out,” or their behavior can worsen. Greater awareness of damaging behaviors is therefore important. The more we recognize the traits in ourselves and others, the less likely they become a problem. However, unfairly labeling or stereotyping doctors as narcissists is to …

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How to manage narcissistic doctors

How to spot a narcissistic doctor

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

May 3, 2019

How is it possible that endemic bullying persists in medicine despite myriad initiatives to improve awareness, mutual respect and medical culture?

In some cases, we can blame health systems issues, such as medical workforce shortages, lack of funding and unsafe hours. But in other cases, we must take collective responsibility for failing to hold individual doctors to account for their damaging behaviors.

Most doctors readily change after being counseled about poor social …

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How to spot a narcissistic doctor

Medical workplace bullying: We just want it to stop

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

April 25, 2019

Health care is increasingly complex. Objective peer review, constructive feedback, and robust debate are essential to continually improve the quality of patient care.

But doctors don’t always disagree well. One of the contributing factors to bullying in medicine is the complex interplay of different personality types in very stressful situations. Some doctors have personality traits that predispose them to have interpersonal conflict and being unable to see the view from the …

How physicians should respond to the words, “I am depressed”

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

February 27, 2019

My response to a colleague who says, “I am depressed,” is critical for many reasons. As doctors have tough masks, it has been difficult for my colleague to disclose this. Due to mental illness stigma in the medical profession, this doctor may have been suffering quietly for some time and could be at risk, perhaps self-medicating with antidepressants, benzodiazepines or alcohol.

When I am the treating doctor of another doctor, listening …

5 ways we can prevent doctor suicide

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

December 5, 2018

For Meg — with sorrow.

We have failed to address the scale of suicide and mental illness in the medical profession, which is a global issue. Each of us can help prevent doctor suicide with these five strategies both locally and worldwide:

1. We can destigmatize mental illness for doctors and medical students

First, we can change the negative attitudes to mental illness in our profession by accepting that doctors and medical students …

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5 ways we can prevent doctor suicide

Where this physician finds joy in medicine

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

October 4, 2018

My country rotation as a medical student was overshadowed by a heated argument between the general practitioner and his wife. She was sacrificing her life in this “hole of a place” and angrily stormed out to visit her children in boarding school in the city. Decades later, I now understand the frustration and challenges of rural general practice for a doctor, who is also a mother:

Being ignored in the street …

What my young patients taught me about parenting

Leanne Rowe, MD

Physician

September 30, 2018

Despite meticulous time management and delegation as a doctor, there were times when I found cobwebs on the laundry left on the clothesline too long, or a moldy school lunch or squashed banana forgotten at the bottom of a school bag at home. I would ensure all the important school dates were in my diary, but I was often tripped up by the curriculum day when school was suddenly off …

Leanne Rowe, MD

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