Suicide Response Guidelines for Residency Trainees: A Novel Postvention Response for the Care and Teaching of Psychiatry Residents who Encounter Suicide in Their Patients

Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Aug;39(4):393-7. doi: 10.1007/s40596-015-0352-7. Epub 2015 Jun 11.

Abstract

Suicide is an event that is almost universally encountered by psychiatrists and psychiatry residents. Because psychiatric patients are at a higher risk for completing suicide than patients of other specialties, psychiatry residents are at risk for experiencing the suicide of a patient during their training. A review of the literature shows that there is continually growing research into the negative emotional effects of patient suicides on psychiatry residents and the need for clear response protocols when a suicide occurs, also known as postvention protocols. However, there are no Graduate Medical Education requirements to specifically train psychiatry residents about this, even with a well-voiced desire by residents to receive this training. In the National Capitol Consortium Psychiatry Residency, encounters with patient suicides by residents in a time of war led us to a place in which interventions were designed and instituted to care for the caregiver, in this case focusing on psychiatry trainees. Our process and product, described here, offers an example of a systematic postvention response. It addresses aspects of what is known in the research base, combined with acknowledgement of the human response and the institutional need for a consistent and objective response.

MeSH terms

  • Education, Medical, Graduate / methods*
  • Education, Medical, Graduate / organization & administration
  • Guidelines as Topic*
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination / methods
  • Military Psychiatry / education*
  • Physicians / psychology*
  • Psychiatry / education
  • Social Support*
  • Suicide*