ABSTRACT
A study by Caplan in 1994 looked at stress levels in GPs, consultants and health service managers. They found that 47% of the study population reported high levels of stress on the general household questionnaire, with 29% suffering ‘clinically significant’ levels of stress. Frequent job changes in trainees compound lack of support and increase their stress and substantial and persistent organisational and technological change across the service is bad for everyone. A medical career may serve as a defence against feelings of anxiety or impotence resulting from the experience of illness or death in family members. The point of retelling the story is simple. Whatever the causes of the excessive psychiatric morbidity in medical professionals, the majority of illnesses from which suffer – affective disorders, addictions, eating disorders – if treated, leave the patient with a reasonably preserved level of social functioning.
