Dr. Mommy Blues

One rather dreary morning during my fellowship, I walked into clinic to find the nurses hovered in a corner, intensely whispering. Always keen to uncover department scandal, I approached the group to get the news. Bubbling with the anticipation of a juicy piece of gossip, I asked, “Hey ladies, what's the word today?” Instead of the rush of giggles that usually followed this line of questioning, sad stares from eyes welled with tears focused on my slender body. “A second-year OB-GYN resident who had a 6-month-old baby jumped off the roof of the 6-story parking ramp and killed herself this morning,” flatly relayed one of the nurses.

How terrible, but why didn't this young woman ask someone for help? How could that happen? We are the vestige of a nationally recognized academic medical center. Our institution has a plethora of social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. She worked in a department where faculty should be wearing antennas programmed to find and destroy postpartum depression. How could they miss postpartum depression in their own resident? What magnitude of sadness and despair could drive a mother to leave her newborn baby? As a young girl, I frequently asked that question—“How could this happen?”—only to hear, “You will understand when you are older.” Since I was now a board-certified pediatrician and still did not understand, I assumed that I never would. Little did I know.

Seven years later I am …