Pamela Wible
Born
Pennsylvania, United States
NationalityAmerican
EducationWellesley College (1989)
UTMB/Galveston (1993) MD
Occupation(s)Family Physician
Doctor Suicide Prevention
Websitewww.idealmedicalcare.org

Pamela Wible is an American physician and activist who promotes community-designed medical clinics; she also maintains a suicide prevention hotline for medical doctors and medical students. Wible is based in Eugene, Oregon.

Biography

Early life

Pamela Laine Wible was born in 1967 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[1] to physician parents: her mother is a psychiatrist and her father was a pathologist.[2] She spent time growing up both in Philadelphia as well as in rural Texas.[2] She would accompany her father in his work in the morgue, and she spent time visiting state mental hospitals with her mother.[2]

Education

Pamela Wible attended Wellesley College (in Wellesley, Massachusetts) as an undergraduate[3][4] and then received her MD degree in 1993 from the medical school of the University of Texas Medical Branch (in Galveston, Texas).[5] In 1996 she completed her training in Family Medicine at the University of Arizona Department of Family and Community Medicine.[6]

Medical career

Upon completing her medical training, Wible worked for several years in a variety of medical settings, including hospital-based clinics and community health centers.[7] Wible began to experience suicidal ideation due to depression and pressures related to her job[8][9] when she became increasingly frustrated with short patient-appointments and other restrictions, and so she stopped her work in the year 2004, and then in 2005 she held a series of "town hall" meetings where she invited community members to write out what they felt would be the features of an "ideal clinic."[7] In the same year Wible opened up a new clinic in the city of Eugene, Oregon which was based on the recommendations from the community.[7] She has also helped do a similar town-hall feedback session with a hospital in Chippewa Valley in 2010.[10]

Wible's clinic includes same-day appointments, appointments that start on time and a smaller practice size.[11] She also emphasizes "patient-focused medicine."[8] The change in her practice helped her enjoy her work as a physician again.[9]

Wible has set up an anonymous suicide prevention hotline to help doctors and medical students who are contemplating suicide.[12] She also collects stories of doctor suicides as a way of raising awareness of the problem.[13][14] Wible's work on doctor suicide prevention is featured in the documentary film Do No Harm: Exposing the Hippocratic Hoax, by filmmaker Robyn Symon.[15] In 2015, she spoke at TEDMED about the problem of suicide in the medical profession.[16] Wible also has a blog called Ideal Medical Care which shares physician's stories of their treatment while being trained and also stories of suicides by physicians and trainees.[15]

Wible has also been critical of medical animal testing.[17]

In February 2023 three United States senators sent a letter to the Department of Justice[18] which cited a study by Wible[19] in a call to investigate state medical boards which discriminate against physicians on the basis of disabilities, including mental health issues.

Published works

  • Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind (2012). ISBN 978-0985710309
  • Physician Suicide Letters Answered, (2016). ISBN 978-0985710323
  • Human Rights Violations in Medicine: A-to-Z Action Guide, (2019). ISBN 978-0985710330

See also

References

  1. ↑ Marohn, Stephanie, ed. (2010). Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change.
  2. 1 2 3 "HEALTHCARE HEROES - Pamela Wible, M.D." The Register-Guard. 19 June 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  3. ↑ "FreelanceMD". Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  4. ↑ "Wellesley Magazine". Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  5. ↑ "USNews & World Report". Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "Family & Community Medicine: Arizona". Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 Denniston, Dave (27 July 2015). "3 Strategies to Break out of 'Assembly-Line Medicine'". MD Magazine. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  8. 1 2 "A doctor's quest to understand why so many physicians die by suicide". CBC. 22 February 2019. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  9. 1 2 Nelson, Eric (2 February 2016). "With New Clinic, 'Physician on a Mission' Keeps Compassion in Fashion". Visalia Times-Delta. Retrieved 16 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ Vetter, Chris (27 October 2010). "Hospital Patients' Wish? Treat Us Like Real People". Leader-Telegram. Retrieved 16 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ McNulty, Eric J. (30 September 2013). "Reimagining Primary Care: When Small Is Beautiful". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  12. ↑ Farmer, Blake (6 August 2018). "Doctors Grapple with High Suicide Rates in Their Ranks". Scientific American. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  13. ↑ Farmer, Blake (31 July 2018). "When Doctors Struggle With Suicide, Their Profession Often Fails Them". National Public Radio. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  14. ↑ Gartland, Michael (17 July 2021). "NYC doctor suicides raise concerns about treatment of resident physicians at Bronx hospital". NY Daily News. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  15. 1 2 Chou, Shinnyi (2017). "Do No Harm: The Story of the Epidemic of Physician and Trainee Suicides". American Journal of Psychiatry Residents' Journal. 12 (4): 10. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2017.120406. ISSN 2474-4662.
  16. ↑ Newkirk, Barrett (19 November 2015). "TEDMED 2015 Get Started in La Quinta". The Desert Sun. Retrieved 16 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ McClain, Carla (30 April 1995). "Critics Cringe at Parkinston's Tests Using Monkeys". News-Press. Retrieved 16 September 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "United States Senate" (PDF). Retrieved 12 August 2023.
  19. ↑ "Physician-friendly states for mental health: A comparison of medical licensing boards". Retrieved 12 August 2023.
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