Slogging #24: The Dentist Suicide Rate Myth and a Moment When Google Doesn't Autosuggest

Why do you think it is that dentists have such a high suicide rate?

I think it's alienation from the process itself and it manifests in every field that is becoming process-oriented.

What's alienating about bacteria mouth maintenance?

That's periodontics. Just one of the 9 or 10 branches, depending on who you ask. Alienation goes beyond dentistry. For example, farmers in India account for over 10% of all suicides in India.

But, in the context of dentistry alone, it could be a multiplicity of factors at play.

Suicide and profession correlations were maybe not the place to start... Sometimes a question just pops in there, like what is the most essential periodontic branch? Or what is a value of a spotless computer? Or why is it that publishing is the -lishing of public but it is missing "ic"?

Here's an academic paper (cited by about 129 sources) that claims that the correlation between dentists and suicides is a myth that we take as face value: http://www.cda-adc.ca/jcda/vol-68/issue-4/adaarticle.pdf

Hmm doing the old quick college scan --- was going to copy and paste a couple quotes about the reliability of the data and the conclusion that dentists are not more likely than other professions to commit suicide ---- but it's a PDF and copy doesn't work in the browser. Cited by 129 sources... and the copy doesn't work. 2021!

lol..works at my end. Let me send over a screenshot of the abstract

Do you have an aha moment of when you decided to stop being a dentist?

I was in my 4th of my 5 year course when I decided that I cannot work under the 'customs' of healthcare practice prevalent worldwide.

Which customs?

People outside healthcare EXPECT us to be those noble creatures but the entire training curriculum is anything but.

If a doctor isn't trained to be the bearer of good news and develop empathetic skills (which is harder that you'd think), the patients could be blocks of wood that squeal for all they care (apologies for the crude analogy)

The specialization of labor can lead to a detachment from the impact of one's work.

Or maybe a quality education trains the dentist on empathy too?

Outside of nurses, no one else learns empathy (unless they venture out on their own - and here's the kicker - be chastised for it). Even nurses learn more by way of 'learn on the job' and less by curriculum mandates

Looking back on my experiences in hospitals, it is the nurses who I think kindly of.

No wonder - they're your first PoC, the primary care-givers, and even administer certain procedures like IV placements better than most doctors - who only come visit you during rounds.

Let's get back to the the internet, and its perception on face value.

What other alleged myths has it scaled like dentist suicide propensity?

I love this - pretty much every sterotype that exists has been been exacerbated by the Internet.

Democrats are _____, Republicans are _____, China is ______,

Hmm googling ("incognito")

this is very sane. Expected a lot worse. But, I guess, Google started monitoring those for hate-speech.

Try typing "democrats are" and "republicans are" into google --- guess what happens? the autosuggest stops working lol. Even though there are millions of results for "democrats are" and "republicans are" the search engine tries to take apolitical stance by suggesting nothing to type.

Wow.