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by tpoacher 18 days ago
It was widely known that doctors are at a considerably increased risk when I was studying medicine, enough to warn us and have professional wellbeing modules in the curriculum. Plus, it's a special population in having significantly different access to relatively covert means, making it more likely to go through with said ideation.

I have seen academic references in the past confirm it. I'm not about to waste time on a scholar deep-dive just to defend my comment but I'm sure you'll find such references easily if you look. Having said that, if "you" have time and you do decide to look and find conflicting evidence that you care to share, I'd be interested to hear more.

> You are suggesting that majority of doctors are depressed with suicidal ideation?

No. I'm suggesting they rank among the highest in occupational risk. In Bayesian terms, the difference between the two is the distinction between a prior and a posterior statement.

> Why do you consider it more likely?

Because, subjectively, the likelihood (low drive for survival given mental disease) should be overwhelmingly higher than the prior (low drive for survival given average person) in this case. Hence more likely.