Doctor tell me Academic competition and suicide
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Doctor tell me what role does high academic competition
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play in campus suicide attempts.
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Because answering questions about your health is an important part of your doctor's services.
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The Minnesota State Medical Association presents doctor tell me here to ask
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the doctor your questions. Is Janice Hughes dead.
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Today our health questions will be answered by Dr. George Williams a
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psychiatrist from St. Paul. Dr. Williams
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Why would so many of what would seem to be the top students
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with their future assured want to kill themselves.
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Well the answer to this question is still very unclear Janice and we may
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really never know. But many of these students are away from home for the
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first time. They're making necessary adjustments which they have never had to
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make before. They're facing a separation from family
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friends and the usual environment in which they have lived for many years
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and the problems and decisions which they have to make now on their own may
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well be so overwhelming that depression and
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suicide may result.
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No. Basic however to all of this is the basic personality
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structure which the individual brings with him to the college
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whereas Not everyone commits suicide.
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Would you say that all students if if not all persons go through
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some point in their lives when they are overly concerned with their own
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suicide.
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I think the answer to that question is yes for I think that most people think
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about suicide at one time or another in their lives and this
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is particularly true I think the teen age group when their language
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is replete with this term suicide I could have
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killed myself and similar terms which have may have absolutely no
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meaning. But let us know that the individual is thinking along these lines.
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Most campus suicides among the marginal are failing students.
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The answer to that question is a bit difficult but a recent study which came
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from a well-known university indicated that most suicidal attempts
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were actually among students who were on the higher level of
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academic production. Our students who pursue certain
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courses of study likely to be more suicidal prone
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Yes those students that are engaged for example in the
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humanities engaged in the feeling subjects if you will
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sociology medicine certainly are said to be higher
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risks.
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There are certain times of the college year when suicides are more likely to
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happen.
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Normally we would think that this might be around the time of
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examinations Actually it's not true September October or the two
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months that we see suicide and suicide attempts occurring
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most frequently.
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Why is it that we hear so little about the campus
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suicides when it is ranked so high in cause of death.
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Well I suspect there are two reasons for that I think that one sometimes the
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information simply is not carried or secondly that
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the. Person can kill themselves and this is a
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diagnosis that may be difficult to make without the use of
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medical examiners and their facilities in order to prove it.
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There's been some indication in some of the private colleges certainly that
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suicidal attempts have been and suicides themselves have been
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completely whitewashed for this indeed
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seemingly would give the college a black eye.
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Thank you very much talk to you.
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The Minnesota State Medical Association has presented Dr. tell me recorded in the
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studios of KUNM at the University of Minnesota. Janice Hughes stead has
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asked the doctor your questions if you have any additional questions. Write
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to Dr. tell me. Minnesota State Medical Association Three seventy
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five Jackson St.. St. Paul Minnesota. 5 5 1 0 0 1.
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This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.
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