No abstract

The objective of this study was to document current risk factors associated with physicians' suicide ideation among a group of doctors enrolled in a Physician Health Program. A retrospective cohort study was drawn from administrative data. The study compared intake information between doctors who reported recent thoughts of suicide (n = 70) and those who did not (n = 1,572) using adjusted regression analysis. Current stressors included personal, financial, health, and occupational problems; ideation was more likely with multiple stressors. Physicians endorsing suicidal ideation lacked personal supports and scored differently on Short Form-36 measures. Evaluators treating physicians should assess enduring risks and current stressors, particularly multiple stressors, to help detect suicidal patients. Current stressors should not be viewed as transitory and it is critical to bring in collateral information.

The frequency and variety of informal care reported in this study strongly argues for profession-wide discussion about ethical and guideline considerations for such behaviour. These areas are discussed in the paper.

Background Physician health programmes (PHPs) are peer-assistance organizations that provide support to physicians struggling with addiction or with physical or mental health challenges. While the services they offer are setting new standards for recovery and care, they are not immune to public debate and criticism since some have concerns about those who are enrolled in, or have completed, such programmes and their subsequent ability to practice medicine safely. AimsTo examine whether medical malpractice claims were associated with monitoring by a PHP using a retrospective examination of administrative data. MethodsData on PHP clients who were insured by the largest malpractice carrier in the state were examined. First, a business-model analysis of malpractice risk examined relative risk ratings between programme clients and a matched physician cohort. Second, Wilcoxon analysis examined differences in annual rates of pre-and post-monitoring claims for PHP clients only. ResultsData on 818 clients was available for analysis. After monitoring, those enrolled in the programme showed a 20% lower malpractice risk than the matched cohort. Furthermore physicians' annual rate of claims were significantly lower after programme monitoring among PHP clients (P < 0.01).Conclusions This is the only study examining this issue to date. While there are a variety of reasons why physicians present to PHPs, this study demonstrates that treatment and monitoring is associated with a lowered risk of malpractice claims and suggests that patient care may be improved by PHP monitoring.

As they are currently conducted, application interviews do not have sufficient power to predict performance during residency. Letters of reference may be useful to the extent that they reflect personal experience with the applicant, but differences in ratings of these letters are not great enough to base admission decisions on them. As it is currently performed, the interview process may be more useful as a means of interesting applicants in the program than of evaluating their potential for success in the residency.