"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. " Chinese Proverb. A doctor’s life is extremely stressful, and doctors have one of the highest suicide rates amongst professionals. Some doctors start abusing drugs or become alcoholics when they cannot cope with the stress they are under.
However, the medical profession tries to hide these impaired physicians, and they usually remain medicine’s dirty little secret. This is because most doctors would rather pretend that such problem doctors do not exist. However, pretending that there are no problem doctors just makes the problem even worse for everyone: for the doctors who are having problems since they have nowhere to turn to for help; for their patients , because impaired doctors provide inadequate medical care and can cause harm; for the profession’s public image, when these problem doctors come…
