An alert survey on the mental health of medical students and interns – archyde

The mental health of medical students and interns has deteriorated over the past four years: during the internship period, two thirds of them suffered a burnout, a quarter suffered a characterized depressive episode, a fifth suffered suicidal ideation, a quarter experienced sexual harassment, and as many humiliation.

These worrying results are taken from an investigation made public by two inter-union interns (ISNI and Isnar-IMG) and by the National Association of Medical Students of France (Anemf) on Wednesday, October 27, during a conference at the National Assembly, at the invitation of the deputies La République en Marche (LRM) Thomas Mesnier (Charente) and Stéphanie Rist (Loiret) – both doctors – and Anne Brugnera (Rhône).

Four years ago, these same organizations published the very first study on the mental health of young doctors, which did not yet include burnout and exposure to sexual and gender-based violence. Concerning anxiety (75%) and depressive (39%) symptoms in 2021, the indicators are up by around ten points compared to 2017, according to this survey conducted between May and June 2021 among 11,800 students, including one majority of externs and interns. “You are breaking a taboo that strikes students and their families in the flesh and in this, your associations are doing public service work”, greet Thomas Mesnier, emergency doctor by profession.

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At 76%, sexual violence, harassment and assault take place in hospital and are committed by doctors (60%), interns (13%), non-medical caregivers (12%) and medical students (10% ). Study and working conditions are cited in 65% of cases as the cause of the discomfort. “I came to learn how to treat, and sometimes I have the feeling that I have learned as much to take the pain of remarks and failures as to treat my patients”, writes an external in a comment at the end of the questionnaire. “The overload of work after twenty-four, even thirty hours without sleeping, can push the interns to the point of committing the irreparable”, deplores Gaëtan Casanova, president of ISNI.

On May 2, 2019, in Lyon, the daughter of Laurence Marbach, intern, committed suicide by ingesting an overdose of beta blockers following professional exhaustion. With her husband, M^me Marbach created the League for the Health of Medical Students and Interns (Lipseim) in order to end “A system which accepts the sacrifice of young doctors in training”. “These new figures make me nauseous, she gets carried away. As a HRD by profession, I am amazed to see that the rules of labor law are systematically abused in the world of health. There are laws, they must apply, period. ”

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