Problems involving mental health such as anxiety, depression, and a hodgepodge of other associated mental afflictions is an increasingly common problem seen by most GP’s today. At one time it was taboo to talk about these things in public, and they were seldom treated by the average doctor. However, its current commonness has made people much more willing to be open about it. These days, most people have no qualms at all about broaching the subject with their doctor. According to The Guardian , doctors themselves seem to be having an even greater struggle with the problem, with one survey finding that up to 85% of those polled were dealing with some sort of mental affliction.

Although the taboo is significantly lessened these days, it remains to some extent. While being are willing to talk about it, they are not as open about it as they are about other social problems—and it is a social problem. The instances of suicide resulting from anxiety or depression are on the rise. The taboo that exists must go right away so that we can address a problem which is quickly getting out of hand.

One huge reason for the rampant increase in depression among doctors is the ever-increasing student debt. To add to the high-pressure environment faced in hospitals and other healthcare settings, many physicians graduate with large amounts of debt. In fact, nearly 40,000 Resident Physicians and Fellows graduate with $188,000 of average student debt annually.

A study on the subject by the University of South Carolina revealed that steady increase of student debt significantly increases a person's stress levels. This is but one of many studies that show that today’s ever-increasing financial burdens are having a decided adverse effect on the mental and physical health of the populace.

Sadly, much of the medical community still has some of the taboo with many doctors trained to hide their own pain. It makes it worse many doctors have very little access to any mental health care or feel shame in accessing counseling.

And most of those who do will not seek help from it when they need it for fear of losing their job because of their admitted mental problem. They are also afraid that their patients will find out, lose trust in them because of this, and drop them as their GP. In order to hide their problems, some physicians will start to self-medicateby abusing prescription drugs, which only makes it worse.

Those of us in society who are not employees in the medical community must remember that those who are are people with their own medical problems, and some of those issues are not always easily visible.