Mental illness in doctorsAn historical context
Year: 2020
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The challenges of modern medicine (long hours, the responsibility to patients and an unforgiving medical culture) are not new. 1 While contexts and societies have changed, insights into the mental health and illness of doctors can be found throughout history. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, medicine existed in a different landscape: as a predominantly male and low-income profession, witnessing the rise of science and technology within a society that deeply stigmatised mental illness. 2 Much of the stoic nature of medicine was established during this time, with the Victorian stiff-upper-lip enforcing emotional repression and the ability to face adversity unscathed. Yet, dissatisfaction and disillusionment can be dated as far back as 1869. A physician lamented that: ‘ Medicine has ever been and is now, the most despised of all the professions which liberally-educated men are expected to enter ’ and advised undergraduates: ‘ don’t study medicine .’ 3
Source: Routledge eBooks
Author: Amy Wilson
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3088693690