Psychiatrists have the highest suicide rate of any profession. It’s time to do something about it.
#BrilliantlyResilientDiaries. Helsinki, Finland. June 26, 2019.
“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
The following is based on a true story.
Dr. Terhi Viiala, an adolescent psychiatrist in Finland, walks home in tears after a long day at work. She’s mentally and emotionally exhausted and her mother was just diagnosed with breast cancer.
Terhi works at the public hospital in Helsinki and her patients are teenagers who’ve been dealt the worst hand in life. Many of them grew up in the child welfare system with very little family or social support.
By the time she sees them at the hospital they’re on seven or eight different medications and barely getting by.
Like most doctors, Terhi is an extremely empathetic person. After several years at the hospital, she’s on the verge of burn out. Her family and friends are worried, because she’s barely eating and doesn’t seem like herself lately.
