The Mental Health Crisis in Ophthalmology

The level of job satisfaction is one factor to be considered in evaluating occupational health. Absentee, injury, longevity, mobility, and occupational mortality rates are measures of occupational health and may be influenced by job satisfaction. One classification of mortality, suicide, may be a significant indicator of job dissatisfaction. In a previous report 1 on suicide in the vision care profession, the extremely high suicide rate in ophthalmology and extremely low rate of suicide in optometry was noted. This leads one to suspect that a high degree of job dissatisfaction exists in ophthalmology. In one health specialty, psychiatry, the high rate of suicide has received wide‐spread attention and numerous authors 2–12 have examined the causes and suggested corrective action. The suicide rate for ophthalmologists is essentially the same as for psychiatrists but no one seems to care. At least, very little, if any, has been published about the problem.