Canadian Physician/Medical Trainee Suicide Log

Currently, Canada does not actively capture physician and medical trainee suicide statistics across Canada in any systematic way.  According to some reports, some areas have actively hidden reports of medical trainee/physician suicides from those in the medical community and public, so no one really knows the scope of the problem. We need to be open about the problem to be able to address it.

I have taken on a project with a medical resident looking at the overall issue of intimidation/harassment/bullying in Medicine, and I have requested data from numerous avenues to find out any stats on physician suicides. It has not been easy, since occupation has not been traditionally captured in Chief Medical Examiner reports, and current sources of relevant data are not linked.

In the United States, there is some federal data collection/source where physician suicide statistics can be determined. As this is not occurring in Canada, we need to start somewhere. 

If you know of any Canadian medical student, resident or physician suicide, suspected or confirmed, please submit whatever information you have (even if it's cases you've heard about and you don't know exact time frames, etc).  This sensitive data will be kept confidential.  If we get enough information, we may be able to access records to fill in any information gaps.

The intent here is to honour these individuals' lives as well as understand the scope of the problem, create a need for a proper "surveillance" system, and focus in on what we can do to prevent more of these cases from occurring.

I will be posting links to memorial/donation pages if they are entered.  Thank you for making sure these tragedies are counted and these lives are honoured.