Justin L. Bollock: Suicide — Rewriting My Story
Selected Excerpt
“Intern year is a marathon. It’s an analogy I’ve heard often, and one that resonates with the runner in me. Both intern year and marathons have a way of revealing vulnerabilities and breaking even the strongest among us. Overwhelmed by sick patients, night shifts, goals-of-care meetings, medical hierarchy, microaggressions, and feelings of inadequacy, even the most solid interns can falter. As an intern with a mental illness, I approached the starting line knowing that at some point my vulnerabilities would be exposed and that hitting the wall was inevitable. I didn’t know when, but if my history of mental illness was any indicator, my crash would be bad.”
Discussion Questions
What resonated for you in this piece? How does it connect with how suicide is seen in healthcare, medical eduation, or our wider culture?
Bullock writes openly about his experiences with suicide and the factors that enable or prevent it. What are some of the barriers to talking about and preventing suicide that he identifies? What are others you’ve encountered personally or professionally?
What can we take from this piece in thinking and talking about suicide prevention? What are some of the changes in healthcare, education, or society that you’d like to see in order to prevent suicide?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“Inflexibility of residency training and a one-size fits all approach means an [enviroment] that creates and exacerbates [mental health] challenges . It's structural (in part). Needs to be addressed. Thankful for author's vulnerability. Last paragraph was gut-wrenching. Now for action.”—@Awhitehouse06
“I reflect a lot on the section where the author was talking to a senior resident; who was asking about the author's well-being, but here too the threat of involuntary hospitalization or professional consequences was ever-present, hanging over every word”—@juveriazaheer
“the deeply held idea that mental illness is somehow weakness is an unconscious bias we have to shine light on by telling our stories. I believe this will break down #stigma because those who read stories like @jbullockruns can challenge the internal narrative”—@ScottVernaglia
“I hope the message we take from pieces like these is that while thoughts of suicide may not be 'normal' they are extremely common & just because someone has thoughts of hurting themselves does not mean they are not fit to practice medicine, it means they are human & suffering”—@jbullockruns
About this #MedHumChat
“Suicide - Rewriting My Story” was paired with “notes” by Danez Smith for a #MedHumChat on September 2, 2020 discussing Suicide Prevention.
We were honored to be joined by special guest Juveria Zaheer (@juveriazaheer), emergency psychiatrist and suicide researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.
We were also honored to be joined by Dr. Justin Bullock (@jbullockruns), the author of this piece. Dr. Bullock is a resident of internal medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
The pieces for this chat as well as the discussion questions were curated by Gina Nicoll (@Gina_Nicoll).
About the Artist
Justin Bollucks, MD, MPH (@jbullockruns) is an Internal Medicine resident who is passionate about medical education, equity, and mental health. He has shared his story about living with bipolar disorder while going through residency training.