Recently a doc told me he got promoted to chief of pediatrics. “I’ve achieved all my goals.” He paused. “Only thing left is to donate my organs.”
I run a suicide helpline. I’ve heard these words before.
Even in death, the selfless physician strives to save lives. All but one’s own.
Selfless from Old English self+leas means “without one’s own person.” Loss of self begins long before physical death. Perfectionists master the art of self-annihilation in childhood.
Like the small-town valedictorian turned Ivy League M.D., Ph.D. Brilliant cardiologist. Happy marriage. Great mom. Marathon runner. Best in class at everything.
Always smiling.
Her death “completely unexpected.”
No mention of suicide in her obituary.
Whispers of a divorce, an eating disorder as a child, parents punishing her if she made less than 100 on tests.
“Child abuse is still sanctioned—indeed, held in high regard—in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing,” says psychologist Alice Miller who writes of the tormented child yearning for parental love through overachievement.
They do well, even excellently, in everything they undertake; they are admired and envied; they are successful . . . but behind all this lurks depression, feelings of emptiness and self-alienation, a sense that their life has no meaning. These dark feelings will come to the fore as soon as the drug of grandiosity fails, as soon as they are not “on top,” not definitely the “superstar” or whenever they suddenly get the feeling they have failed to live up to some ideal image . . . Then they are plagued by anxiety or deep feelings of guilt and shame. What are the reasons for such disturbances of these competent, accomplished people?
Repressed memories are well-hidden under the thrill of academic conquest. Hoarding degrees, certificates, and diplomas an all-consuming addiction.
Physicians stay very busy “helping people.” Why?
I interrogated my physician parents. Separately (so they couldn’t cheat). Beyond “love science” and “help people,” I sought the real reason why they became doctors. Dad poured a glass of vodka and murmured, “So my mother would love me.” Mom’s face turned red as she spewed out, “I thought my mother would finally love me!”
Lost parental love can’t be recouped with a medical diploma.
So we shower patients with attention and love. Hoping for reciprocity from grateful surrogates.
Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb was the only child of hypercritical violent parents. They’d wake him at 4:00 am and throw him into an ice-cold shower at age two. His father kept repeating, “You are good for nothing!”
Petrified of becoming his dad, Jon had no children.
Jon’s patients were his kids. As chief of pediatrics and congenital heart surgery, he was their protector and savior.
Despite repairing complex defects in hearts the size of an adult’s thumb (with lowest mortality of all US pediatric surgeons at 1.8%), Jon couldn’t stop the voice of his inner critic, “I’m not good enough.”
Most would celebrate saving 98 of 100. He’d say, “I lost two out of 100.”
Competing in triathlons to stay in shape for surgery, Jon set a frenetic pace performing triple the yearly cases of his peers.
“I have a bit of an extreme personality. What I do demands ultimate perfection.”
At the pinnacle of his career, after implanting the first successful pediatric heart pump, Jon barricaded himself inside his home study on Christmas then overdosed on pain meds and alcohol.
An organ transplant advocate, Jon was unable to donate his own organs.
His physician wife said he had no signs of depression.
A 325-gram baby he operated on weeks before his suicide.
Haunted by the few who died, Jon penned a five-page profanity-laden suicide note blaming the US medical system and naming incompetent staff. “These people don’t care! I have a gift to save babies. The world is not ready for me.”
Jon’s final words—a longing to reunite with his dead parents.
“I am going home!!! To my mom and dad!”
What do these three doctors have in common?
The chief of pediatrics, the brilliant cardiologist, and the congenital heart surgeon all felt unloved as children. So they “killed off” their true selves to play the perfect trophy child in hopes of one day (maybe upon death) feeling loved by mom and dad.
Childhood abuse fueled their professional success.
And choice of specialty.
Helping helpless children.
Fixing broken hearts.
❤️🩹
VIDEO: Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb: His Life & Legacy
Pamela Wible, M.D., is a suicidologist who offers peer support, weekly retreats, and a suicide helpline for physicians.
I am feeling such profound gratitude for you and the work you choose to do… or did it choose you?
As a woman in her early 80s who has gained insight during 24 about how profoundly injured I was by
an on-going string of ACEs as a very young child, I am so grateful for your profound contributions to
suffering doctors.
May you be blessed in all ways, always!
Rita
Thank you, Pamela, for this beautifully written post that says it all, so well.
Much love,
Gwendolyn
Still heartbroken for so many suicides, three waaay “too” close to me and … always just more love, so much love and gratitude ~
This rings so true for me.
Part of the reason I worked so hard to get into medicine is because I thought it would make me relevant, worthy, and loved. Mostly from my absent alcoholic father who’s loved I craved the most.
I thought if I worked hard enough, changed enough people’s lives, and sacrificed enough that I would receive the love I so desperately craved in return.
For me however, I learned early on that suicide was never the answer, it only spreads the pain amongst the living. This is because I had the privilege of accepting my dead cousin’s diploma at our high school graduation after his suicide one month prior, and one week prior to my birthday.
Instead for me I buried the pain, worked harder and harder, and sedated it away with just about anything I could find to do so. Maybe this was my way of slowly killing myself?
I was serving from an empty cup.
The lesson here: We all must learn to love ourselves, take care of ourselves, and cultivate love in our lives outside of our profession. We must balance the rigors of impact and service with rest, recovery, and joy in our own lives such that we can fill our own cups and allow it to overflow on to others instead of serving from an empty place.
God bless all our healers.
Hi Pam,
I am glad that I am still on your mailing list. I read the article about Jonathan Drummond-Webb. It was heart breaking, as every suicide is. Dave died 22 years ago this past Wednesday so doctor suicide has been on my mind. Dave was fortunate to have loving, supportive parents, but I know that he always felt that he needed to achieve….highly achieve…..academically, musically and on the sports field. And he did. Maybe if he had failed somewhere along the way, he could have allowed himself to be less than perfect in his life. But to be the best was the only thing that mattered to him. When he could no longer do that, he gave up.
How many more doctors and medical students will we lose? Keep up all of the work that you do. You are making a difference. All of the people we lost will be with us as long as we can remember them. I still hold Dave close to my heart.
I came so close to my own.
I hate government agencies
Permission to LIVE!
Thank you for all you do Pamela!!
Let’s see if our paths can cross in 2025!
K.I.S.S.
Is still one of my most favorite support suggestions.
Keep It Simple Sister (or son, or whatever other term of endearment “s” word you may choose)
Holidays are particularly challenging amidst the warmth and joys of the season remembering those lost. Great tragedies. The moral and intellectual injuries done to recent generations of physicians and surgeons amidst the ObamaCare healthcare swamp are also very disturbing. THANK YOU, Dr Pamela Wible, for this insightful and sensitive article and ALL your programs.
Peace and grace, blessings to you and yours. Best, Katherine Murray Leisure, MD, Medicine/ Infect Dis, retired May 2023 … lucky after 43 years of ID work, > 30 publications. 12/24/2024.
I will pray for his wife. It can’t be easy.
Reading your emails makes me weepy. You are doing great work.
Irvin Schonfeld
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
This breaks my heart and I so understand
Dawn Moshier🤗
Pam
Very strong.
Nice work!
Thank you my dear !
What an honor to honor such a precious man and doctor !
Thank you so much Pamela! Take good care !
I shall look forward to seeing you on 12/26 for Jonathan’s celebration of life!!
What a life!!
He has never been properly celebrated either.
Better late than never.
❤️
Why is the adjective “selfless” in the first paragraph of every story like this? Perhaps altruism is not an ethics at all, perhaps altruism is a slave ideology deliberately designed to counter the explosion of pride, and productivity that will accompany the discovery of the world’s first rational morality. You doctors need Galt in the worst way.
Excellent point.
I see the word selfless in many doctor obituaries. Docs who died by suicide.
Thank you for your response, unfortunately it is unsatisfactory. Doctors need to be righteous about their absolute right to live for themselves and their careers. Doctors need to EXPLICITLY reject the premise that “healthcare is right” and that they themselves are slaves to the needs of others. As you might imagine, this would be a wildly unpopular view, requiring courageous men and women. This needs to start with people who have platforms like you. Doctors themselves will need to become experts in philosophy and each of its branches, including epistemology, a rational view of man, ethics, and politics. Doctors can gain a great advantage by becoming thoroughly versed in the works of Ayn Rand.
Dear Pamela❤️
You are doing another real mitzvah honoring and celebrating Jonathan’s zt”l precious life !
Love Lisa
I just read about the surgeon who died from perfectionism. Another surgeon in our community has died by suicide—also know to be a very thorough perfectionist-type A person. As all surgeons probably are. I wish we could have told him that he was “good enough” and so valued. We miss him dearly. Left behind a wife and small children.
Thank you for your beautiful memorial. Because of you I always thank my doctors for what they do — being good people and great doctors. I always try to find something to compliment people in general because I believe there is too much criticism and not enough compliments.
Dr. Robert Sapolsky is a stress expert at Stanford. He talked about how children who had no parents went into orphanages in WWII after the war. Each orphanage had the same amount of monetary support however one gave the children a lot of attention and love and the other did not. The children who received love grew and grew and the other orphanage that didn’t give love, the children did not and were sickly. That is the power of love.
I have a son who has Asperger Syndrome but manages pretty well in public. Growing up he hated all vegetables and milk and wanted only fast food. Yet, he grew up tall and strong and I am sure it is because of our love of him.
Thank you Dr, Wible for helping out your colleagues. You are a beautiful person!
Thank you so much for your sweet note and I totally believe in the therapeutic potential of love – we can overcome so much when we feel loved! I’ve seen this firsthand with severely burned children. A child with lesser burns withering away without family visiting him while another much more severely burned boy was happily playing with his family.
All we need is love!
I worked with this brilliant man at Arkansas children’s hospital for many years. Never have I been so crushed when he left us. What a loss to the children of AR, but what a Savior to so many. I never go through the Christmas season without thinking of him and being thankful for what I learned from him. May God continue to bless his beautiful wife.
Thank you Belinda – for cherishing him as we do. We just had a six-hour celebration of life for Jonathan this past week on the 20th anniversary of his death. WOW! So much love for him. Still. ❤️
VERY VERY SAD .. MAY HIS .. NR / DR DRUMMOND’S SOUL REST IN ETERNAL PEACE 😰
PARENTS HAVE TO BE SO CAREFUL.. IN BRINGING UP THIER CHILDREN..
PUT ALMIGHTY GOD FIRST AND DO NOT ABUSE YOUR CHILDREN (Physi, mentally; Emotionally & Socially) the
LOVE; SUPPORT & PROTECT THEM ESP. In THEIR CHILDHOOD STAGE .. HOW CAN A FATHER BE JEALOUS OF HIS OWN CHILD.. whew! Beats me !!😰😰
THOSE WHO ARE READING THIS .. PLEASE REMEMBER GOD LOVES YOU… NB. …. THE JOY OF THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH .. Nehemiah 8: 10
Thank you Sepherina (beautiful name) – precious wisdom for us all. ❤️
I am sorry I missed this event. Thank you for telling his story. And his wife’s. Mental health stigma is the biggest threat to wellbeing and health.
We have weekly events now as this surgeon has so much more to teach. Ongoing. This months:
Pathological Perfectionism 101 Does a voice in your head keep saying you are not good enough? Do you spend evenings and weekends worrying about patients? Do you live in fear of making a mistake? Join physician peers who feel your pain. Together, we’ll learn simple strategies to calm the inner critic with inspiration from Dr. Drummond-Webb & guests. Four-week course meets: Jan. 5, 12, 19, 26 (60-90 min)
monthly in case you miss dates above, reach out here