Weekly News Roundup Sept 23-29, 2023

Subscribe to receive the weekly news roundup straight to your inbox!

Nurses and health care support workers at higher risk of suicide, study finds – STAT News
September 26, 2023
A recent study has found that, in the US, health care support workers, nurses, and health technicians have suicide rates higher than those of the general population. The general population rate in the US is 12.6 per 100,000 while for health care support workers it’s 21, nurses 16, and health technicians 15.6. Study lead author Mark Olfson said, “This is the first study to really look across all of the health care workers. What it is about health care work that’s contributing to the [suicide] risk, we don’t know. But we do know from this study that if you control for the level of education and you control for income, you still see that health care support workers are almost twice as likely to die of suicide.”

US surgeons are killing themselves at an alarming rate. One decided to speak out – Guardian
September 26, 2023
This article focuses on the story of Carrie Cunningham, president of the  Association of Academic Surgery, and her experience of suicidality. Cunningham opened up to a room of 2000 peers and told her story of suicide ideation and mental health challenges. Cunningham says, “I was the top junior tennis player in the United States. I am an associate professor of surgery at Harvard. But I am also human. I am a person with lifelong depression, anxiety, and now a substance use disorder.” Jessica Gold, a psychiatrist at Washington University who specializes in physician wellness, says, “(Physicians) feel miserable. We basically think that feeling bad is part of medicine, and we can’t identify that we’re doing poorly, or that we should take time for ourselves and figure out that we actually might be depressed.” Cunningham said to her 2000 colleagues, “I wish I could get those of you in this room that are struggling the courage it takes to seek help. But I can’t. I can promise you that people will show up for you as you would for anyone else who asked for help. I have to accept that I will always have tough days. I can expect recurrent bouts of depression throughout my life,” she said. “It is a disease, not a character flaw. It does not define me.”

Advocates say Alex Fraser Bridge needs a suicide barrier solution – Global News
September 26, 2023
**Method warning** Police in Delta, BC and Stacy Ashton, executive director of the Crisis Centre of BC are calling for suicide barriers to be put up on the Alex Fraser Bridge. Delta Police Chief Neil Dubord says that engineers are “afraid any additional weight may cause some engineering problems…” Chief Dubord explains, “We are frustrated to a certain extent — we understand the engineering requirements the bridge has and the difficulty they have in being able to put up barriers here. Unfortunately, it’s our officers who are responding to these crisis calls, and people are losing their lives.” Ashton says, “I am not an engineer, but I would love to see engineers take up the challenge.” Ashton notes that barriers are very effective in preventing suicides, “(Barriers) also decrease suicides overall. There is a myth that people will just go somewhere else and die there, but that is a complete myth; we don’t see any evidence of that. So we strongly support suicide barriers.” 

McMaster Children’s Hospital one of three Canadian sites testing new youth suicide prevention – Hamilton Spectator
September 25, 2023
McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario is one of three sites in Canada taking part in a study testing a new youth suicide prevention program. “It’s a study that’s designed to test whether a six-week caregiver- and teenager-focused intervention helps reduce self-harm and suicide attempts in young people after they come to the emergency room with suicide risk,” said Dr. Khrista Boylan, the MacKids site investigator. “It’s a common problem, unfortunately… It’s promoting communication in the moment and problem-solving. Other interventions have never tested if that is the ingredient that makes the difference… We’re hopeful we find that there’s a benefit beyond usual care.”