Every year on September 17, the healthcare community observes National Physician Suicide Awareness Day, a time to remember the lives lost and confront a painful reality affecting healthcare providers. Steve Parker of Curi shares his perspective on why this day matters and points to resources from the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation that can help move awareness into action.

Every year on September 17th, the healthcare community pauses to observe National Physician Suicide Awareness Day (NPSAD). It's a day to remember those we've lost in this tragic way, but also to confront an uncomfortable truth: the people we depend on to care for us are struggling to care for themselves.

Behind the white coat is a workforce navigating chronic understaffing, overwhelming administrative burden, trauma from difficult patient outcomes, and a culture that has long demanded self-sacrifice over self-preservation. The result is a mental health crisis that has been quietly building for decades—one the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation has built their mission around.

The Numbers Tell a Story We Can't Ignore

The Foundation, established in memory of an emergency medicine physician who died by suicide in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, has compiled research that puts staggering numbers behind what many in medicine have felt for years:

• Female physicians face a 53% increased risk of suicide compared to the general female population.
• Female nurses face a 35% increased risk of suicide compared to women outside the profession.
• Pharmacists face a 21% increased risk of suicide compared to the public.
• Suicide accounts for 2.2% of dentist deaths—nearly double the rate seen in the general population.
• 46% of healthcare workers report frequent burnout; a rate of poor mental health higher than any other occupational group.

These are not abstract statistics. Each percentage represents colleagues, mentors, friends, and family members—people who spent their careers showing up for others and in many cases, had nowhere safe to turn when they needed help themselves.

Why Does This Keep Happening?

It would be easy to frame this as an individual problem, saying physicians simply need to be more resilient or manage stress better. But the Foundation's research points to something more structural. This is not standard job stress; it's the product of systemic drivers built into the way healthcare operates.

• Administrative overload. Physicians spend two hours on paperwork every hour of direct patient care, pulling them away from the work that originally drew them to medicine.
• Workplace violence. Healthcare workers only make up about 10% of the U.S. workforce, yet they experience almost half of all nonfatal workplace violence injuries nationwide.
• Institutional stigma. Licensing and credentialing applications in many states still ask intrusive questions about mental health history. As a result, roughly half of physicians avoid seeking mental health care, fearing it could jeopardize their license or career.

That last point highlights the paradox so many physicians live with daily, and it's precisely the barrier the Foundation was built to dismantle.

Last year, we were proud to be recognized as the first Wellbeing First Champion by ALL IN: Wellbeing First for Healthcare, a coalition of national organizations led by the Foundation. A distinction earned due to our MPL insurance applications being made free from those very questions related to mental health. With these updates, physicians need only demonstrate their current fitness to practice—an approach reflective of today’s best standards for supporting physician wellbeing and privacy.

Burnout Is Not a Mental Health Condition—But They're Connected

One of the most important distinctions the Foundation draws between is burnout and clinical mental health conditions. Burnout is a workplace syndrome causing emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a diminished sense of accomplishment due to occupational stress. It cannot be solved with wellness apps or resilience training alone; it requires fixing the systems that produce it.

Mental health conditions, on the other hand, require diagnosis and treatment, just like any chronic illness. The danger arises where the two intersect: unrelenting burnout erodes a person's coping capacity, making them more vulnerable to depression and anxiety. When that vulnerability meets a high-stigma culture and restricted, non-confidential access to care; conditions go untreated. That untreated crisis is a primary driver of suicide within the healthcare workforce.

In my work, I speak with countless physicians and one theme surfaces repeatedly: they are exhausted by the steady erosion of control over their profession. Doctors who trained for years to exercise sound medical judgment now find that judgment routinely overridden by insurance carriers, forcing them to fight for the treatments and therapies they know their patients need. That fight extends to getting paid for care already delivered — payors "deny and delay" claims, then simply change the rules of reimbursement, often with no recourse for the physicians left holding the bill. The cumulative effect is a system that has quietly repositioned physicians as subservient to third parties rather than as the trusted center of the physician-patient relationship, with almost no leverage to reclaim that position

From Awareness to Action

Recognizing the problem is the first step. The Foundation channels NPSAD into concrete action, encouraging both organizations and individuals to get involved.

• For healthcare organizations, this means implementing systems-level wellbeing frameworks like Caring for Caregivers, removing intrusive mental health questions from licensing and credentialing forms, and treating physician wellbeing as core to patient safety and organizational strategy.
• For healthcare providers, it means knowing your rights around mental health disclosure, contacting your state licensure board about outdated credentialing questions, or simply being there for your colleagues.

Real change requires both: workplaces redesigned around human limits, and confidential, stigma-free pathways to care for the people working within them.

How to Help Today

You don't have to work in healthcare to make a difference this NPSAD:

• Check in on the physicians, nurses, and healthcare workers in your life.
• Challenge the stigma when you hear it, whether it's a joke about "toughening up" or a policy that discourages someone from seeking care.
• Support policy change, including efforts like the Lorna Breen Act, which works to remove barriers to mental health care for health workers.
• Learn the resources available through the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation so you can point a struggling colleague or loved one in the right direction.

A Culture Worth Building

Healthcare cannot function without healthy healthcare workers. National Physician Suicide Awareness Day exists because too many talented, dedicated people have been lost to a system that asked them to carry more than any one person should have to bear—alone, in silence, and afraid to ask for help.

Let’s use September 17th to encourage each other that the culture can be changed, remember those that we’ve lost, look honestly at the numbers, and commit to building a healthcare system where seeking help is seen as a sign of strength.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available 24/7. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. To learn more or get involved, visit the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation.

Statistics in this post are sourced from the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation (drlornabreen.org/learn-more).

These resources and guidance are offered for educational and risk management purposes only. This information is not medical or legal advice, does not replace independent professional judgment, does not constitute an endorsement of any kind, should not be deemed authoritative, and does not establish a standard of care in clinical settings or in courts of law. If you need legal advice, you should consult your independent/corporate counsel. We have found that using risk mitigation efforts can reduce malpractice risk; however, we do not make any guarantees that following these risk recommendations will prevent a complaint, claim, or suit from occurring, or mitigate the outcome(s) associated with any of them. The content contained herein was generated by Curi with the assistance of an AI-based system to augment the effort.

SHARE THIS POST