ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature on the physical health, mental health, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, drug abuse and suicide among doctors. It focuses on stress among hospital doctors and qualitative data from the interview with junior doctors and consultants. Psychosomatic disorders are the diseases which are believed to have psychological factors as their causative agents. Circulatory diseases which include heart attacks and strokes are amongst the principal causes of death in 1992 in England among males and females. It has been proven that hypertension and heart disease are accepted as having a link to stress. It might be expected that doctors would suffer more illness than the general population, because of paramount work pressure, very little free time, long working hours, irregular meals, disturbed nights, interrupted evenings and weekends and close contact with death and diseases. Doctors are among the ten highest risk occupations for suicide; they have a suicide risk of 72" higher than the general population.
