"When you get to medical school, you're not a human being anymore," Abiodun Kukoyi DMS '11 said. "You're supposed to be superhuman."
Kukoyi and approximately 30 other audience members participated in the discussion, which followed a screening of the documentary "Struggling in Silence: Physician Depression and Suicide."
The event is the first in the three-part series, "Piece of Mind," which focuses on the stigma associated with psychiatry and mental health issues among medical professionals.
Between 300 and 400 physicians commit suicide each year, according to the documentary. Many of these physicians first experience depression during medical school, and physicians are more likely to take their own lives than are other members of the general population, the documentary said.
Students cited the intense pressure of medical school as a likely cause of this trend.
"You really sacrifice everything else," Sarah Dotson DMS '11 said. "So if you aren't successful on quizzes and tests, what are you doing it for? You feel like a failure across the board because you don't have time to do anything else."
The intense time commitment of medical school can also create distance between medical students and their loved ones, several students said.
"It's hard for people who aren't in the medical field to understand what you're going through," Katherine Au DMS '11 said. "There's definitely a distance there. It can be harder for our family and friends to relate to us."
Competition also adds to the stress of medical school, students said.
"You sort of expect to be depressed in medical school -- it's sort of normal," Mougnyan Cox DMS'12 said. "Everyone else is depressed too -- even then, you're not special."
Medical professionals and students are often ashamed to seek help for mental health issues, according to the documentary, which can allow depression to progress untreated.
"When we took psychiatry last term, there was this sort of stigma that students who get treatment for depression are different than everyone else," Fadzai Chinyengetere DMS '11 said.
Students said counseling options that make students less ashamed to seek professional help for depression are needed.
Some suggested that all medical students should be encouraged to seek occasional counseling to make people more comfortable with the idea.
"I think that when you are having depression, your judgement can be a little off," Au said. "But if you can go into Dick's House and are comfortable with being there, then when you need it, there won't be that stigma about being there."
Au added that students might benefit from the experience of attending counseling sessions, since they would most likely be referring patients to such sessions in their future roles as physicians.
Alice Flaherty, one of the physicians featured in the documentary, used her personal experience with manic depression and bipolar disorder to help treat patients with similar problems.
The series, which was organized by the Dartmouth Medical School Martin Luther King Committee, will continue with a speech by University of California, San Francisco psychiatry professor Francis Lu DMS '74 on Jan. 20 and a panel discussion on Jan. 27.
