Congress can’t let the year end without renewing the Lorna Breen Act This crucial legislation, which expired this year, supports health care workers’ mental health needs

https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/10/lorna-breen-act-health-care-worker-mental-health-physicians/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8bCmSyaTmYCejFY946Ncms1ITwV-5cHASSWpr-5vjxxxg6zJ4ibKB94jLwA-NIhI_xo__hVnArq6yjqWuR8RnwEse6tQ&_hsmi=349157006&utm_content=349157006&utm_source=hs_email Female docs at higher risk for suicide, study says Between 2017 and 2021, female physicians died by suicide at more than 1.5 times the rate of females in the general public, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. The rates were significantly higher before the Covid-19 pandemic began, but comparable after, the study authors write. In the same time period, male doctors died by suicide at lower rates than men in the general public. Out of everyone in the study who died by suicide, physicians were more likely to have experienced depressed moods, mental health issues, and legal problems than non-physicians. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2830401?guestAccessKey=5b54efa5-f490-4c36-9879-6e5bd722985e&utm_term=022625&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_medium=referral&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9r474FNvhyv-g-e422vaGs4ThhyCeoVFg_NTH7vmaMTrfdkthUev7XWjRIxRlEkIPw3r9nolJ9KEg-9U7B4FWr_B6gFQ&_hsmi=349157006&utm_content=tfl&utm_source=for_the_media It’s a commonly-cited statistic that doctors die by suicide at twice the rate of the general population. And while there’s persistent evidence that medical professionals, especially doctors, suffer poor mental health broadly at higher rates than the public, the evidence on suicide rates specifically has varied. Many studies use older data, and there’s a powerful stigma around mental illness in medicine, making suicides particularly difficult to track. (This study used data from the National Violent Death Reporting System to analyze the deaths.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/10/06/doctor-suicide-coronavirus-covid/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9wRsbk7yJXKo_LBEAR3IJU9Z4C7Um_fMOb9iVJHffPscSGaIB7ePc1biOysTvoGeEzLJ3SDvnk_IfjQLiIdDP5WBCTXA&_hsmi=349157006&utm_content=349157006&utm_source=hs_email The Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, passed by Congress in 2022 in honor of a physician who died by suicide, aimed to support health care workers’ mental health needs. It expired last year, and Congress has yet to reauthorize it.