Doctors take an oath to save lives but are taking their own at an alarming rate. Jumping off hospital rooftops, hanging themselves in janitorial closets, overdosing on drugs—they’re A students, and their suicides are often like well-planned school projects. Doctors are healers, yet they have the highest rate of suicide among any profession.
The documentary, “Do No Harm,” follows four people bonded by tragedy on a mission to expose Medicine’s dirty secret. Doctors and medical students pull back the curtain on the causes and cover-up of the alarming rate of suicide of Physicians, the highest rate among all professions and almost twice the general population. At a time when there’s a looming and unprecedented Doctor shortage, more than one million Patients lose their Doctors to suicide every year. Yet because of the stigma of suicide, it’s often covered up. In “Do No Harm” from director and two-time Emmy winning producer, Robyn Symon, the audience learns that suicide is just the tip of the iceberg—a symptom of a much larger crisis in Medicine—an epidemic of depression, drug abuse, sleep deprivation and burnout that begins in medical school with fierce competition, bullying and mounting student debt.
Here are some additional insights about the subject matter and the making of the film from Symon:
Q: What was the hardest part about making this film?
Robyn Symon: Getting Doctors and medical students to talk about this hidden epidemic because of the stigma attached to suicide and mental health.
Q: Have you gotten any pushback since making the film?
R.S.: When we started, no medical institutions wanted to participate in the film because of this shroud of secrecy. But once the president of the AAMC agreed to be interviewed, then the other organizations fell in line or risked reinforcing what people already felt about these organizations, which was that they were turning a blind eye to the problem.
Q: What was your most shocking discovery during this process about Physician suicide?
R.S.: One shocking thing we uncovered was that young Doctors, because they are considered cheap labor, are worked 28-hour shifts while they’re caring for Patients, dealing with life and death. They are regulated by an agency called the ACGME who recently increased their work hours despite overwhelming evidence that shows sleep deprivation leads to medical errors. The other devastating thing that we uncovered was that medical errors are the third leading cause of death behind cancer and heart disease. But because on death certificates there’s no code for medical errors, it’s difficult to really know how many deaths and medical errors occur because unlike the airline industry, Physicians hide their mistakes because of the liability. It was this link that made me realize this story impacts everyone. 3
