D. Mark Anderson, Ron Diris, Raymond Montizaan, Daniel I. Rees 28 January 2022
Physicians tend to enjoy good physical health. The typical physician exercises more, is less likely to smoke, and is less likely to be obese than his or her non-physician counterpart (Nelson et al. 1994, Frank et al. 1998, Abramson et al. 2000, John and Hanke 2003, Smith and Leggat 2007, Leuven et al. 2013). In the US, physicians live an average of two years longer than other professionals, and almost three years longer than members of the general population (Frank et al. 2000).
Although physically healthy, there is evidence that physicians disproportionately suffer from mental health problems and substance use disorder (SUD). More than 20% of physicians are depressed or exhibit symptoms of depression (Mata et al. 2015, Rotenstein et al. 2018, eTable 24); 10–15% of physicians will misuse alcohol or prescription drugs during their career (Baldisseri 2007, Vayr et al. 2019); and at least a third of physicians describe themselves as suffering from ‘job burnout’ (Drummond 2015), a syndrome closely linked to depression and SUDs (Bianchi et al. 2015, Schonfeld and Bianchi 2016, Wurm et al. 2016, Stageberg et al. 2020). Compounding these problems, physicians are often reluctant to seek psychologic help, perhaps out of shame or fear of losing their license (Dyrbye et al. 2017, Tay et al. 2018, Weiner 2020, Belluz 2021).
Could becoming a physician lead, in a causal sense, to mental health problems and SUDs? Answering this question is important from a policy perspective. If, for instance, easy access to prescription drugs, the rigors of residency, and the threat of frivolous malpractice claims are encouraging physicians to abuse substances, then there are concrete steps that can be taken to shield them. Several US states (including New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) have recently prohibited COVID-19 patients from filing medical malpractice…