What is it about?
This article discusses biomedical understandings of suicide to explore the ways in which they undermine our ability to prevent physician suicide. It builds on insights about the importance of managing uncertainty in medical practice and contends that suicide defies the typical strategies available to do so. The article examines the ways that physicians prefer to understand and engage with problems as if they are caused and solvable. Suicide, in contrast, is a problem that has irreducible uncertainties. The article contends that physicians distance themselves from the issue because of its mysterious, unreconcilable unknowns.
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Why is it important?
Suicide is tragic, common, and preventable. Prevention efforts in suicide frequently encourage help-seeking. This article describes why these strategies for prevention may inadvertently cause harm or exacerbate distress. Moreover, in discussing norms and values in medicine that shape how physicians respond to suicide, we learn more about how physicians may respond to patients and others confronting suicide.
Perspectives
Suicide appears to be more prevalent among physicians, particularly female physicians, which is confounding because physicians are, as a group, at lower risk for most negative health outcomes. This article offers novel theoretical insights about why this may be the case.
Elizabeth Bromley
University of California Los Angeles
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Uncertainty, Bewilderment Aversion, and the Problem of Physician Suicide, Current Anthropology, March 2024, University of Chicago Press,
DOI: 10.1086/729432.
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