There are few things that we all know for certain. We know that the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. We know that there is no escape from death and taxes. We also know that among all the stressful professions in the world, it is dentists who have the highest suicide rate. Many people accept this myth as common knowledge, and it seems to resonate. Here's why. Some people feel stress when they go to the dentist, and it is only logical to assume that the dentist also feels a great deal of stress as a result. This stress, taken to an extreme, could lead to suicide. You may be surprised to learn that there is little evidence that dentists are more prone to stress-related suicides than the general population, according to an article in the June 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).

Like an urban legend, something that is repeated enough times over and over again begins to be accepted as the truth. "Since 1933, both the public and professional media have repeatedly portrayed dentists as being suicide prone," said Roger E. Alexander, D.D.S., professor, Baylor College of Dentistry, The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, Dallas. Over the past twenty years, there has been little attempt to verify this claim, despite the fact that there are plenty of valid statistics on this important issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide took the lives of 30,575 Americans in 1998 (11.3 per 100,000 population), and more people die from suicide than from homicide. In 1998, there were 1.7 times as many suicides as homicides, and overall, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all Americans, and is the third leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24. Clearly there is no shortage of statistics on suicide, but there appears to be no evidence that dentists are at any higher risk than the general population, according to the journal's study.

While I won't argue that dentistry can be stressful at times, I think it's fair to say that people in any occupation can feel stress at one time or another. It is also important to point out that it is mental disorders (particularly depression and substance abuse), not stress, that are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide. Fortunately, recent research has not confirmed a high suicide rate among dentists, despite decades of misinformation.