I am sure he is the exception rather than the rule. He probably suffered from some mental issues, and saw only one way out of his misery.
Why don't you take a look at the statistics before shooting your mouth off.
Top 11 Professions with Highest Suicide Rates
These days it seems as though many people are unhappy with their jobs. However, employment satisfaction ratings do not necessarily predict whether someone is going to commit suicide. There are plenty of jobs that people claim do dislike, but they still keep showing up to earn their paycheck. There are other jobs that are perceived as utopian by most societal standards including the occupation of a dentist and that of a doctor.
Yet year after year, both dentist and doctor remain among the occupations with the highest suicide rates. It seems as though in the United States, jobs requiring significant levels of aptitude, sacrifice, and education seem to be those with above-average risk of suicide. Oddly enough, contrasting evidence has emerged in countries like Britain that indicates the opposite trend to be true: occupations requiring lower skill tend to carry increased rates of suicide.
Unfortunately, specific data of suicide rates by profession is generally imperfect. It is impossible to get an accurate comparison of all careers in regards to suicide rate. Therefore, researchers have taken the time to analyze some of the more common occupations and have come up with a list of professions that are thought to have the highest suicide rates.
Top 11 Professions with Highest Suicide Rates
Below is a list of the professions that are believed to have the highest suicide rates. Much of this data has been compiled based on information released from the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH). The data collected from the NIOSH is generally outdated by a couple of years and will be subject to change based on futuristic modifications to the landscape of the market. Keep in mind, that the data is subject to slight error and annual adjustments.
The “Odds” listed below include a number indicating the rates of suicide compared to those in the general population. For example, if “1.5” is listed, it would mean that those in the mentioned profession die from suicide as a cause of death at a rate that is 1.5 times the norm. Since not all rates were able to be specifically determined.
1. Medical Doctors
Evidence suggests that doctors are approximately 1.87 times as likely to commit suicide than those working other occupations. Examining all causes of death as a doctor, nearly 4% of all doctor deaths result from suicide. There are many factors that are believed to make doctors more likely to resort to suicide than average, including: long hours, demanding patients, malpractice lawsuits, continued education, medical school expenses, and ease of access to medications.
If a doctor becomes stressed and/or deeply depressed, the fact that they can easily obtain medication is a contributing factor to the increase in suicides among this profession. A doctor is also extremely knowledgeable regarding doses of medications and combinations that would prove to be fatal. Evidence suggests that doctors are nearly 4X as likely to use drugs as a suicide method in attempt to overdose.
Additionally, doctors that do suffer from a mental illness often won’t seek treatment for an array of reasons. They may not want word to spread that they have a particular psychiatric condition, they may feel as if the medications will affect their performance, and they may not be able to admit that they actually need medical help. Certainly each doctor is different, and the majority of doctors actually have a below-average likelihood of committing suicide due to the fact that they take optimal care of their mental and physical health.
Note: Male and female physicians are equally as likely to commit suicide. In comparison to standard female occupations, female doctors are 2.78 times as likely to commit suicide.
2. Dentists
Most people don’t particularly enjoy going to the dentist, but most can tough it out in order to get clean teeth. The dental field is considered extremely competitive and requires significant technical skill to deliver optimal oral care. Like doctors, dentists work in a field that is rife with stress from working long hours and complaints from patients.
Researchers suggest that dentists are nearly 1.67 times as likely to commit suicide compared to an average job. There are many factors that likely contribute to this increased risk of suicide including: stress, demanding nature of the job, patient complaints, perfectionism, and even loans to pay off from dental school. Many new dentists enter the field with significant debt and overwork themselves in attempt to pay it off – not realizing that they are sacrificing their personal health.
Sure being a dentist can result in a significant income, but not many people realize the degree of stress that most dentists experience. Couple these factors with ease of access to various drugs and a well rounded pharmacological knowledge, and committing suicide becomes an easy prospect. Additionally, dentists are believed to suffer from higher rates of mental illness due to stress, but are less likely than average to seek out help for their condition.
3. Police Officers
When most people think of police officers, they think of upstanding citizens that are in great mental and physical health. However, many people don’t realize that enforcing the law is often very stressful and requires a significant amount of work. Many police officers work overtime and depending on their assigned duties, they may become more stressed than average.
Some have suggested that police officers are much more likely to become depressed than people working other occupations; estimates suggest the likelihood is nearly two-fold. Due to the stressful nature of their job, they are less likely to get adequate sleep – with most police officers routinely getting under six hours. Despite the stress associated with this job and preliminary reports that police officers have high suicide rates, the rates are often fabricated with too high of numbers simply to generate media hype.
Looking more specifically, it appears as though Caucasian men tend to have lower suicide rates as police officers compared to women and African-American men. Suicide rates for women that become police officers tend to be approximately 2.03 times that of the average population, while African-American male police officers tend to engage in approximately 2.55 times your average worker. However, in general, your “active duty” police officer engages in suicide as a cause of death at a rate that is still less than doctors and dentists. More police get killed from felons than those who die of suicide.
4. Veterinarians
Those involved in the field of animal care as veterinarians seem to have above average suicide rates when compared to the general population. Since many vets have easy access to various pharmaceutical medications and a knowledge of the pharmacology, using them for the purposes of suicide isn’t a far-fetched idea – especially when a veterinarian becomes depressed. This is another job that requires technical skill, proper diagnoses, and little room for mistakes.
Many vets work long hours and constantly see animals get put to sleep, which may detrimentally affect their emotional wellbeing. For some veterinarians, the combination of working with sick, suffering animals may lead to feelings of depression and emotional stress. Like medical doctors, many veterinarians may also believe that they take optimal care of themselves and don’t need to seek treatment should they suffer from a mental illness. On average though, suicide rates for veterinarians have historically been considered a profession with higher than average suicide rates.
5. Financial Services
The finance industry is full of people making a lot of money, yet consistently has above average suicide rates. It is thought that among those who work in the financial industry, the suicide rate is approximately 1.51 times that of an average worker. Due to the recession that hit the United States and ensuing economic changes, those who work in the financial industry may not feel as secure as they had in the past.
Some evidence has demonstrated a clear correlation between suicide in the financial industry and the state of the economy. In a booming economy, the suicide rates plummet due to the fact that the financial workers are likely also raking in more money with less to worry about. In a bust economy, financial advisors are often losing significant amounts of money and have trouble generating business.
The fact that the financial market has been subject to instability in recent years, many in the financial industry become stressed and/or depressed. Although these individuals may not have ease of access to pharmaceuticals like doctors and dentists, the pressure to “swim-or-sink” in a poor economy often leads some financial experts to inevitably “sink” and they resort so suicide.
Think about it, if your job was at the mercy of a poor economy, you may become stressed. Also, if you are helping others invest and they end up losing money or not meeting projected quotas, it is easy to carry significant guilt. These are all hypothesized reasons that may contribute to elevated suicide rates among those working in the finance industry.
6. Real Estate Agents
Working in the real estate industry has significant earning potential, but often carries equally as much risk. While becoming a real estate agent may not take as much of a financial toll on a person, establishing themselves in the industry is often highly stressful. Even after a person gets established as a real estate agent, they are responsible for closing deals, negotiating, and if they need to sell a valuable property in a specific amount of time, they may become stressed.
When properties become devalued in the housing market, it makes selling pretty tough. Someone who needs to make a specific amount of money may not understand that when property values plummet, real estate earning potential often does as well. While there are always some sharks in the real estate industry that earn significant money regardless of the housing market, there are also individuals that end up becoming broke.
Some real estate agents have a really tough time finding work in a bust economy. This leads to less sales and less money to provide for themselves and/or a family. The suicide rate among real estate agents in estimated as being 1.38 times the average worker. Obviously the risk is subject to fluctuation based on the current state of property values and the housing market.
7. Electricians
Becoming an electrician often carries a high earning potential. Additionally, electricians are always in demand due to the fact that most people don’t want to work around high voltage electricity on a daily basis. Most qualified electricians have no problem finding a job or earning a salary capable of supporting themselves.
However, electricians tend to commit suicide at approximately 1.36 times the rate of your average worker. Some have theorized that the continuous daily electromagnetic radiation may alter brain chemistry and functioning of the nervous system. This alteration may make electricians more prone to major depression and ultimately suicide. This particular theory warrants further scientific investigation.
Perhaps the fact that most electricians are often dealing with potentially life-threatening currents and are often need to fix electrical mishaps quickly leads to above-average stress. Obviously some electricians may be happier than others and less prone to suicidal ideation, but overall the suicide rate is considered above-average.
8. Lawyers
Becoming a lawyer requires significant education and educational expenses. Additionally, once an individual completes the necessary education to become a lawyer, they often have accumulated debt from student loans. Simultaneously, they often have difficulties finding a good job that meets their expected income level. It should also be mentioned that law students tend to become depressed before they establish themselves as lawyers. Some reports suggest that nearly 40% of law students deal with depression.
Working lawyers are thought to have higher rates of depression than the average U.S. citizen. – some research indicates their rates are approximately 3.6 times that of average occupations. The fact that lawyers are more prone to depression and often have to work long, stressful hours to establish themselves, their mental health can suffer. This can spiral into thoughts of suicide, and if a lawyer feels as if there’s no escape from their stressful career, they may act on those thoughts.
Obviously not all lawyers suffer from depression and suicidal ideation, it just happens to be more common in this particular occupation. Statistics indicate that lawyers are 1.33 times more likely to off themselves as an average citizen. The skyrocketing rates of depression and suicide in recent years have lead to the implementation of mandatory psychological evaluations for lawyers in certain states.
9. Farmers
Farmers are responsible for growing crops to provide food for the rest of the country. However, for most farmers, growing crops isn’t necessarily a lucrative business. Many famers deal with inclement weather that detrimentally affects crop production. If crop production is low, the farmer is unable to make enough sales to adequately provide for himself and his family.
This increases overall financial stress, which leaves the farmer with less money to reinvest in the farming business. With less money to reinvest, the potential crop for the following year remains lower than average. Not only is being a famer considered to be among the lowest paying jobs in the United States, but it requires long hours and significant hard work.
Farmers constantly need to buy machinery, replace parts, and are often considered to be isolated from society. Outside of other family members, being a farmer results in minimal social interaction, which may contribute to increased depression. Perhaps most notably, farmers are often exposed to pesticides, which have been linked to suicide. For these reasons, suicide rates among farmers are approximately 1.32 times that of your average occupation.
10. Pharmacists
Being a pharmacist often results in working long hours, getting inadequate sleep, and high levels of stress. Pharmacists need to be highly alert because they are responsible for dispensing pharmaceutical prescriptions on a daily basis. All it takes is one major error in the dosing of the medication that they provide for them to lose their job. They need to make sure that they follow proper protocol and are essentially perfect in the dispensing of medications.
The perfectionist nature of this job results in further stress upon the pharmacist. Additionally, some pharmacists are required to work shift-work at 24 hour pharmacies, which is well-established to be detrimental to a person’s mental health. The suicide rate among pharmacists is approximately 1.29 times that of the average occupation. While most licensed pharmacists earn a good salary, they carry a significant amount of responsibility.
They are responsible for informing patients of medication side effects and dealing with collecting payments for certain medications. Often times a patient who cannot afford a particular medication or is confused will unleash their misguided anger upon a pharmacist. Also considering the fact that a pharmacist has easy access to drugs and a general knowledge of dosing and pharmacology, it makes suicide via overdose a more common option.
11. Chemists
Working as a chemist or scientist is found to have a suicide rate that is approximately 1.28 times that of other occupations. Individuals involved in science fields, particularly chemists are able to easily obtain deadly chemicals and concoct formulas that are likely to be lethal. Chemists have an astute knowledge of what they could mix together and theoretically could create a strong batch of drugs as a means to overdose.
Those working as chemists and scientists are often under significant pressure to perform on the job. Not only do they need to be perfectionists, they are often scrutinized if they fail to come up with a new breakthrough in their field. A scientists or chemist could end up wasting a significant amount of money on a study if nothing significant is found. This job can be high stress, especially since they may be conducting studies that are backed by millions of dollars.
Scientists typically work long hours and carry out highly technical research. Although many scientists and chemists would never take there lives, it would appear that people working these particular occupations die by suicide more frequently than most others.
Military Personnel & Veterans
What about those working in the United States military? Doesn’t the stress accumulated on the job often lead to suicide? According to 2013 research in the Journal of the American Medical Association, various factors such as long deployments, multiple deployments, and experience in combat didn’t tend to increase suicide rates. This research demonstrated that approximately half of all troops that engaged in suicide had never actually been deployed.
Despite the fact that suicide rates among troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan had drastically increased (by double) until 2009, the rates among those who were never deployed actually tripled. Suicide among those in the military tends to fluctuate based on whether our country is currently at war. The potential risk of being deployed into combat is often what leads many people to take their own life.
Suicide rates for military personnel have dropped since 2009. The rate among active-duty personnel is suggested to be roughly 18 suicides per 100,000 troops. This number was higher pre-2009 when troops were constantly being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. It is difficult to compare military personnel to other careers simply due to the fact that most people serve a brief stint in the military, whereas other careers tend to be lifelong.
Many people have suggested that military suicides are common, but not necessarily among active-duty members. They are more likely to occur among veterans who have served and had to deal with PTSD. If we are considering veterans, who take their lives at nearly double the rate of the average population, they would likely be at the top of the list.
