My sister is currently finishing medical school at Penn. We talked about suicides in hospital and university settings. She had an interesting perspective on th

My sister is currently finishing medical school at Penn. We talked about suicides in hospital and university settings. She had an interesting perspective on the problem. She said that it isn't the intensity of the work, the academic rigor, or even the emotional damage from constant exposure to death and disease. It's the sleep deprivation. There is a very large amount of evidence that one night of reduced sleep massively increases medical errors. Despite this knowledge, sleep deprivation remains this massochistic macho hazing ritual, which increases in severity through residency. It's dangerous and unnecessary. This article does a good job of capturing the chain of internal events that lead from exhaustion to burnout to severe depression and finally to suicidal ideation.