Doctors need to take care of each other. Starting now.

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I like to think that doctors are still a profession made up of people who want to help others. Sure, there are other benefits to our jobs. The technical challenge, the intellectual rewards, the financial security. But honestly, we do really get a lot from helping others.

It’s satisfying to look to your fellow man in a time of need and heal them. It’s a very special privilege we enjoy. There is one very notable exception to this, and that is when we have a colleague in need who is suffering depression. Then, we seem to turn a blind eye, turn off our empathy and ignore what is becoming a growing and very serious problem in medicine. Depression is the claiming the lives of our best and brightest and the only thing we’re doing as a profession is shaking our heads after the event and saying such things as “What a waste!” or “Such a shame.” Why are doctors finding it so hard to extend that same desire to care to ourselves and to our colleagues when depression strikes?

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