Aasland OG, Hem E, Haldorsen T, Ekeberg O., 2011 [26]

Mortality among Norwegian doctors 1960-2000.

The total number of deaths in the study population was 1,583,559.

To study the mortality pattern of Norwegian physicians, people in human service occupations, other graduates and the general population were compared during the period of 1960-2000 by decade, gender, and age.

Physicians have a lower mortality rate than the general population for all causes of death, except suicide. The mortality rates for other undergraduates and human service occupations were 0.7 - 0.8 compared with the general population. However, physicians have a higher mortality rate than other undergraduates.

MEDLINE/ PubMed

Despite the 40-year period, the number of deaths for some causes of death is inevitably low. Thus, some of the groups are too small so that differences are statistically significant.

Pan YJ, Lee MB, Lin CS., 2009 [29]

Physician suicide in Taiwan, 2000-2008: preliminary findings

1011 deaths with recorded causes in physician insurance records from January 1, 2000 to April 30, 2008.

To explore the association between physicians’ suicide and their characteristics, including age, sex, specialties, area of residence, hospital types, and suicide methods

Physicians who committed suicide possibly were aged near 40 years old, served the community, lived in urban areas, and were specialized in Medical Clinical Practice, Family Medicine, Psychiatry, and Surgery.

MEDLINE/ PubMed

The level of suicide might be underestimated due to the stigma surrounding suicide, which could make some suicide deaths be listed as others in the death certificate. It is possible that a selection bias has been done; although 93.5% of the total amount of deaths had been covered by this safe database, the authors cannot be sure if the cases included in the dataset are different of those that were not included regarding death causes.