Doctors are from thirty to one hundred times more likely than lay people to abuse narcotics,
depending on the particular drug. At a semiannual meeting of the American Medical Association in
1972, surveys cited showed that nearly two percent of the doctors practicing in Oregon and
Arizona had been disciplined by state licensing authorities for drug abuse.
An even larger
percentage got into trouble for excessive drinking. Even the AMA admits that one and one-half
percent of the doctors in the United States abuse drugs. Various reform and rehabilitation
measures over the years have not changed these percentages.
Keep in mind that these figures
represent only the identified cases. In lllinois, for example, Dr. James West, chairman of the Illinois
Medical Society's Panel for the Impaired Physician, reported that four percent rather than two
percent of Illinois doctors are narcotics addicts! He further estimated that eleven-and-one-half
percent were alcoholics -- one in nine.
Suicide accounts for more deaths among doctors than car and plane crashes, drownings, and
homicides combined. Doctors' suicide rate is twice the average for all white Americans. Every year,
about 100 doctors commit suicide, a number equal to the graduating class of the average medical
school. Furthermore, the suicide rate among female physicians is nearly four times higher than
that for other women over age twenty-five.[209]
Apologists for the medical profession cite several reasons for doctors' high rate of
sickness.The drugs are easily available to them; they must work long hours under severe stress;
their background and psychological makeup predisposes them to stretech their powers to the
limits;