DOCTOR’S CONSULTING ROOM

Evening Star, Issue 20051, 17 December 1928, Page 15

DOCTOR’S CONSULTING ROOM

IS IT SKSRT ROUTE TO CEMETERY 7 DIVERGENT OPINIONS According to Dr E. Graham Little, M.P., who _ spoke at a meeting of the Royal Institute of Public Health, the doctor’s consulting room, far from l>o.ing a gold mine, is often the shortest route to the cemetery- “ Alcoholism aud suicides are notably frequent in doctors, compared with other classes,” he said. “As compared with lawyers and with clergymen, the medical group has a much higher mortality. Two causes of death which are unhappily notably frequent in doctors, as compared with other groups, are alcoholism and suicide, and reasons for this _ selective _ frequency may be perhaps inquired into. The doctor, especially the doctor practising in crowded industrial areas, is a much overworked man. He is often obliged to force himself to the utmost to got the last ounce of his strength brought into action in an emergency, and the peg of whisky is the quickest and most effective means of getting that last ounce of energy out of himself. “The doctor, also, in poorer and slum districts, is usually an isolated and lonely as weL as a tired man. He is largely cut off from fellowship with his equals. He cannot mix with his patients as men in better environments may do,, and moderate, but continued drinking, rather than occasional excesses, constitutes the worst type of alcoholism, that of the solitary or secret drinker. The drabness of life under these circumstances is again a compelling factor in producing alcoholic habits. PREVALENCE OF SUICIDE. “The prevalence of suicide may perhaps he explained by a number of considerations. The doctor who thinks ho is attacked by a fata) disease may yield to a temptation to end his troubles which is not present to other persons similarly affected, and the transitory, or even momentary, depression of a tired man may thus precipitate a fatal issue which so simple a measure as a good night’s rest would avoid. The means of terminating his existence are always at his band in the drugs which he handles; “ It is also probably tmo to say that the medical calling has never been so anxious a one as it is to-day. The profession is greatly overcrowded. Far from being the gold mine which popular imagination so fantastically imagines it to be the consulting room of a doctor is much more often the shortest route to the cemetery.” A MEDICAL CRITIC. Dr Alfred Cox. medical secretary to the British Medical Association, does not agree. “1 should not call it a drab life,” hefsaid. “I should call it the most interesting life there is. There is no drabness about it except to a man who finds himself in the wrong profession. “ To my mind if is an exaggerated way of putting the position when ono speaks of the doctor’s consulting room being the shortest route to the cemetery. 'l'he strain on a doctor in an active practice is very great, both mentally and physically, but it must bo remembered that a man cannot pursue a medical career unless he has pretty good health to begin with. “ Roughly speaking, it is true_ that the temptation to alcohol is great in the case of a doctor on account of missed meals, irregular working hours, and so forth. And there is, of course,easy access to drugs, hut I am unablo to say whether suicide is frequent in doctors My own view 'is that, physically, doctors are as good_ as any other class. The life is a_ trying one, but I should not say that it is an especially easy road to the grave.”