Primary Psychiatry Interview with Eric M. Plakun, M.D.

How did your interest in the impact of suicide on physicians evolve?
Clinicians and other mental health professionals encounter the issue of suicide in many forms. Many patients at the Austen Riggs Center, which is a national referral center for treatment-refractory patients, are suicidal. Approximately 10 years ago, a difficult-to-treat patient at the center who had treatment-refractory mood disorder and borderline personality disorder committed suicide. There was a significant reaction to the patient suicide among clinicians, which cascaded through the center. My colleagues and I decided to examine the reasons behind this suicide and look for methods that would improve care in the future. One colleague, Jane Tillman, PhD, began a study interviewing therapists whose patients had committed suicide in the course of treatment. We realized that important clinical issues dealing with the treatment and evaluation of suicidal patients as well as with the significant impact of suicide on clinicians should be addressed, and that additional contributions to the literature on these subjects were needed.

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