Tag Archives: mental health

Stigma Despite rigorous training, doctors are not immune to the same mental health struggles that affect those we treat, much as we might like to pretend otherwise. And when these struggles arise, the stigma within our own profession makes addressing them, or even acknowledging them, far more challenging than it should be. I first experienced psychological distress after completing MRCP, though I did not understand what was happening and confided in no one. I now appreciate I was experiencing flashbacks of childhood abuse, and, though I sought help from a therapist, it was short-lived. Being a doctor provided an integral structure to who I wa

Case An 81-year-old woman presented to our cardiac centre with acute onset ischaemic sounding chest pain during week 4 of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. She reported increasing anxiety since the start of isolation. The onset of chest pain was related to a package dropped off by her family and occurred within an hour of receiving it. Although welcome, this caused her a mixed extreme of emotions as it both heightened her sense of loneliness and anxiety, while at the same time caused her pleasure from family contact. Her past medical history included permanent atrial fibrillation (AF), hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia and iron deficie

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges – the coordinating body for the UK and Ireland’s 23 medical Royal Colleges and Faculties – has put together many useful resources on its COVID-19 web pages. A section on self-care resources includes advice on mental health and wellbeing is available at: https://www.aomrc.org.uk/covid-19-mentalwellbeing/ Further mental health assistance is available via the COVID Trauma Response Working Group (https://www.traumagroup.org) which has been formed to help coordinate trauma-informed responses to the COVID outbreak. Composed of psychological trauma specialists, coordinators of the psychosocial response to