For whom has the QPHP been created?

• All physicians, residents, students and their immediate family.
• All colleagues, organizations and institutions that want to know how to help a colleague in need.
• All associations of physicians, residents or students wishing to organize a prevention conference, seminar or program

A mixed blessing: Personality traits of a physician

Attention to detail and thoroughness
Highly developed sense of responsibility
Perfectionism
Forever doubtful and second guessing
Need to take charge of situations
Need to please
Uncomfortable with emotional display

What makes you a good doctor puts you at risk.

Doctors and residents are threatened on two fronts

• By their skills and knowledge Self-diagnosis + self-treatment = deadly trap Easy access to drugs and medication Medical culture = solving a problem through medication is normal behavior Knowledge of drug effects = delusion that addiction can be avoided 
   
• By their work environment
  Difficulty of practicing medicine given the constraints and limitations of the current system
  Stress
  Overwork
  Rising expectations from patients, peers, family

The main risk factors

• Stress resulting from the increasing demands of a growing clientele
• Amount of knowledge and new facts to learn
• Daily contact with suffering and death
• Traps of self-diagnosis and self-medication
• Complex health system
• Medical culture and access to medication
• Overextending yourself

Reluctance of physicians in asking for help

The QPHP was created because, as physicians ourselves, we are very much aware that physicians

• will not readily ask for help
• can disregard or neglect their own health problems
• fear for their image
• dread being judged by their colleagues
• tend to isolate themselves rather that ask for help

Reluctance of residents in asking for help

Residents fear

• their resident colleagues as much as their superiors
• getting low scores on their evaluation because they are ill
• being perceived as weak (especially in case of mental illness)
• being labeled
• being turned down by insurance companies (life, disability)

The traps

• Complacency
• Denial
• Self-diagnosis and self-treatment
• Use of substances (alcohol, narcotics, tranquilizers, other drugs)
• Compulsion to constantly work

Reasons most frequently given for not asking help

• Danger of breach in confidentiality
• Evidence collection for a medical file 
• Problem in getting life or disability insurance
• Concern may be deemed... baseless 
• Meeting an “acquaintance” in the waiting room
• Having colleagues pass judgement
• Denial a problem exists
• Feeling of inadequacy, humiliation
• Fear of loosing the license to practice
  

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