Reviewed by: Linda Healy
Posted on: October 16, 2023
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What an appropriate title for this book! This is a journal of the time before, during, and after Betsy Gall’s husband takes his own life. She discusses the stresses of being a doctor that contributed to her husband’s suicide and shines a light on the fact that anyone, at any time, can have mental illness.
One stressor is that becoming a doctor can take up to 14 years of extended education, which may result in lost wages for that time and student loans that, with interest, can amount to $400,00 or more.
Also, doctors—who used to be in private practice—now enter a broken system that pays them less yet demands they reach productivity goals. They must see more patients faster and faster, setting time limits on patients’ needs.
People who became doctors to help people are tasked with watching suffering and death, causing PTSD symptoms in some doctors. Recently, the staff overwork and many deaths from COVID added to the problems.
Perfectionism is a necessary but taxing trait of a physician. Any degree of error is poorly tolerated because of the consequences to a patient. Doctors tend to obsess over this need to be perfect and feel extreme guilt over any errors.
Matthew Gall went into medicine to help people and as an oncologist he saved and extended many lives. But over the years the pressures built up, and he began to occasionally snap at a patient, someone who needed him. He started receiving complaints about his performance. That affected his OCD need for perfection. He began to lose confidence, which led to other mistakes related to treating patients. He couldn’t sleep and his anxiety was high.
Betsy and her family tried valiantly to help Matthew cope. Thinking a change might help, they moved from Minnesota to North Carolina. This failed to improve Dr. Gall’s problems and he became increasingly depressed and lost weight. He feared treating his symptoms, afraid that either the treatment or the side effects of any medications might cause him to lose his medical license. He lost his ability to reason and saw no other way out of his pain. Within three months of the move, he committed suicide.
Betsy did her best to support her husband but suffered from exhaustion due to his waking her up at night. She also suffered weight loss. It was difficult for her to see her husband as anything other than the fully competent man he had been as long as she’d known him. It was hard for her to go against his wishes to get him into treatment against his will.
Betsy Gall has written a fascinating book with excerpts from her journal during this painful period. She has graciously shared this difficult part of her family’s life to show the dilemmas and pressures faced by doctors and educate on physicians’ and others’ suicides.
