When I was the sports medicine doctor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), I had a resident who came to us from Johns Hopkins Medical School. He was a bright and dynamic young man who was also a competitive marathoner. But he seemed to suffer from the hard lifestyle of a resident even more than most. He struggled to understand that he was accepted.
One Saturday on grand rounds, everybody noticed that he was off, and we referred him to a psychologist. He was diagnosed and put on lithium for bipolar disorder. But just a few weeks later, he shot himself in the chest and died.
I've been thinking about that young man recently following the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. To me, these are not just news events. A number of my patients have committed suicide over the decades, and 5 years ago two of my colleagues in the Santa Monica community, an ophthalmologist and an anesthesiologist, killed themselves in the same year.
The prevalence of suicide increased by 25% from 1999 to 2016.[1]As sports physicians, we often encounter athletes at a point of extreme pressure as they face sports competition. Physicians, too, face constant stress as we struggle with limited time and resources to help people in dire situations.
