A few days ago, the news of the death of Dr. Nolan Williams, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, shook the international medical community. A brilliant researcher, pioneer in neuromodulation and creator of the SAINT protocol, an innovative magnetic stimulation treatment for resistant depression, had taken his own life.
Talking about it hurts. But keeping it quiet hurts more. Because even those who dedicate their lives to preventing suicide are not exempt from the suffering that accompanies it. And because, in a field where statistics have become routine, the death of one of our own reminds us of something essential: mental health is not just another medical specialty. It is a vulnerable, often silent frontier, where science does not reach and professional heroism does not immunize.
Recent studies confirm that doctors, and especially female doctors, have a significantly higher risk of suicide than the general population. In the particular case of psychiatry, the paradox is profound: although we work every day against the despair of others, we rarely give ourselves the space to process our own.
Mexico presents alarming figures regarding suicide. According to INEGI data, in 2023, 8,837 self-inflicted deaths were recorded, which represents a rate of 6.8 per 100 thousand inhabitants. The most affected are young people between 15 and 29 years old. And while the demand for care grows, the mental health system is hemorrhaging. In the public sector there are only 1.1 psychiatrists per 100 thousand inhabitants, and half of them are concentrated in Mexico City. If those who practice in the private sector are added, the number barely reaches 3.7, well below the world average.
The invisible burden of burnout
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, medical burnout has become a silent epidemic. Almost half of doctors in Latin America report symptoms of severe emotional exhaustion, and psychiatrists are no exception. Unlike other specialties, ours is fought in an intimate terrain: that of emotions, stories, traumas, fears and loss of meaning.
Added to this is the little-known fact that psychiatry is one of the lowest paid specialties in the medical field. While a surgeon can charge between three and five times more per hour than a psychiatrist, the emotional, cognitive and support work we perform, often highly complex and with a heavy legal burden, does not receive the economic or social valuation it deserves. In many hospitals, psychiatry positions continue to be the lowest paid.
Mexican psychiatry has a brief history. Although the specialty was consolidated in Europe in the mid-19th century, in Mexico the professional license in psychiatry was officially recognized until the second half of the 20th century. Specialized training began in the 1950s in hospitals such as Fray Bernardino Álvarez. Since then, progress has been limited in infrastructure, research and budget.
According to the World Health Organization, mental health continues to receive less than 2% of total health spending in middle-income countries, and Mexico is no exception. Although technology is transforming almost every medical field, mental health remains marginalized, trapped between bureaucracy and stigma.
Science or fashion?
In this context, psychedelic-assisted therapies – such as ketamine, psilocybin or MDMA – have emerged as a new hope. Clinical trials demonstrate rapid and significant reductions in suicidal ideation and resistant depression, as long as they are applied in controlled contexts and with therapeutic support.
However, this scientific promise coexists with a dangerous distortion: the culture of wellness, that universe of well-being turned into a commodity, which trivializes mental health and transforms complex treatments into commercial experiences without supervision, without integration and without clinical follow-up. What should be a profound therapeutic process often becomes consumption disguised as healing.
The suicide of Nolan Williams confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: psychiatrists also get sick, we also break, we also need help. And yet, we continue without real support networks, without institutional self-care policies, without spaces for emotional, much less spiritual, supervision of our own work.
We cannot continue to support a system that demands infinite empathy without rest, without containment and without fair remuneration. Caring for mental health requires caring for those who support it, with decent conditions, time, recognition and integrative tools that address body, mind and spirit.
Beyond the symptom
This is a call to rethink medicine and, especially, psychiatry. We are not technicians of the soul; We are human beings who accompany the pain of others while we navigate our own. We need to reconcile science with humanity, pharmacology with psychotherapy, neurobiology with purpose and spirituality.
Because turning off symptoms is not healing.
And because, if we forget our own vulnerability, suicide will continue to take away colleagues, friends, teachers… and with them, a part of our hope.
If you or someone you know is at risk, seek help.
Remember: you are not alone.
- In Mexico, the Línea de la Vida (800 911 2000) offers 24-hour care.
- In the United States, call 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline).
I would love to hear about your questions or experiences related to this topic. Let’s continue talking; You can write to me at [email protected] or contact me on Instagram at @dra.carmenamezcua.
