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Audio New research reveals medical students are at greater risk of medical health problems

Rachel Carbonell

A new survey has found that medical students suffer higher levels of psychological distress than other students. The Australian Medical Students Association says universities must commit more resources to mental health services for students.


ELEANOR HALL: A survey of Australia's medical students has found that they experience much higher levels of psychological distress than the bulk of the population.

The preliminary findings of the research into the mental health of thousands of Australian doctors and medical students will be presented at a national convention today, as Rachel Carbonell reports.

RACHEL CARBONELL: It's well known that medical practitioners suffer from high levels of pressure and anxiety, which can lead to high rates of suicide and mental illness.

The Beyond Blue Doctor's Mental Health Program recently conducted an in-depth survey of 11,000 medical practitioners. It also surveyed medical students to try and get a better understanding of the issue.

Michael Bonning from Beyond Blue says the results will be published and publicly released later this year, but he says the initial results are concerning.

MICHAEL BONNING: The high rate amongst medical students of general and specific distress, in comparison to the general population. This includes things like psychological distress, burnout, depression, anxiety, which runs at higher levels than the general population.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The interim findings will be presented to a gathering of hundreds of medical students at a convention in Queensland today.

Dr Bonning says the medical students that were surveyed reported higher levels of psychological distress than young practicing doctors, and the factors that caused that stress were largely linked to the demands of studying medicine and balancing those with family, social and personal responsibilities.

MICHAEL BONNING: Mental health problems that develop in life, especially early in life, can often go on to affect the mental health of people during their practicing careers.

If people are going to take on significant careers in medicine, what we want is for them to both enjoy but also be productive as part of these careers, and we know that mental health problems can be a significant source of lost productivity, can also impact upon the way in which practitioners interact with one another and interact with their patients.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The president of the Australian Medical Students' Association, Benjamin Veness, says the study findings aren't surprising and are common to many university students.

BENJAMIN VENESS: Mental health is probably the key health problem affecting young people. Young people have the highest rates of any of the age groups and furthermore, their access to care is lower.

For medical students, my concern is that not only are we seeing evidence of elevated levels of distress, but there's not very much time in the program either, and perhaps not as supportive a culture as we need to see either to enable them to access care so they can deal with that early before they start practising medicine and seeing patients in a more authoritative capacity.

RACHEL CARBONELL: He says universities need to take the results seriously and improve the mental health services available for students.

BENJAMIN VENESS: My understanding is that universities have very antiquated models of care in the main. It's difficult to find many examples within Australia where universities have done anything particularly innovative on mental health.

There are only a couple of examples of, say, Headspace clinics, which have been installed on or close-by university campuses. Most of them are operating under and old model of having a counselling service and probably a separate set of general practitioners if they're lucky. Those things don't necessarily talk to one another, and the student bodies, despite crying out for help, are not receiving it from administration.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the president of the Association of Australian Medical Students, Benjamin Veness, ending that report from Rachel Carbonell.

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