Psychiatric Illness in the Medical Profession: Incidence in Relation to Sex and Field of Practice

The author surveys the overall incidence of psychiatric illness among the physicians of British Columbia during 1970-74. The overall suicide rate was more than 36.5/100,000. The specialties of highest incidence were psychiatry and opthamology. The aims of the survey were to determine the incidence and severity of psychiatric illness and to test the hypothesis that previously reported suicide rates for groups of physician’s correlate with rates of incidence of psychiatric illness.(25 ref.)