Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and statistical analysis of suicide by profession reveals that physicians and veterinarians experience abnormally high suicide rates. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive literature review over what some general theories of suicide are, why these professions exhibit high suicide rates, what assistance is currently being provided, and where do these assistance efforts succeed or fail. Moreover, this paper addresses what advancements may be made within these fields to further combat suicide in physicians and veterinarians. To achieve this, general theories behind suicide, risk factors unique to or heavily prevalent in these professions, and current assistance efforts are read, organized, and summarized.<br/><br/>A summary of these risk factors includes stress and mental health disorders accumulated through school and work, personal and professional isolation, access to lethal substances, suicide contagion, exposure to euthanasia, and the role of perfectionism. There are several assistance efforts in place with the most successful ones being highly personalized, but many are still underutilized. Moreover, the stigma of suicide pervades these professions and is addressed by several researchers as something to combat or prevent. Going forward, it is hopeful that not only will more assistance efforts will be created and provided for physicians and veterinarians suffering from suicidal tendencies, but efforts to reduce the stigma of suicide be implemented and utilized as soon as possible.

Healthcare is delivered in many ways across the world. Most countries use one of the four healthcare models, but the United States uses parts of the four models. This leads to issues for patients as they may not know what their insurance plans cover. Providers also have issues with health insurance in getting coverage for their patients. With both patients and providers having issues with insurances, insurance companies have not taken an action to help alleviate some of the issues that everyone faces. Providers are also faced with issues of burnout as they have a lot to do, and not enough time or energy to complete everything. This effects the quality of healthcare that is delivered to their patients as well as when a person can see a provider as there are not enough doctors and nurses to cover the case load all of the time. All in all, providers, insurance companies, and patients need to work together to help fix some of the issues with healthcare to be able to move towards a better healthcare model for all.

To the public, law is portrayed as a career where people experience an intense workload that eventually leads them to burnout. As a person interested in becoming a lawyer, I took it upon myself to research how burned out lawyers are in the empirical literature and study if that burnout can be linked with job dissatisfaction and, further, life dissatisfaction. As predicted, lawyers have been and continue to be burnt out and that burnout has implications on their job and life satisfaction. In turn, a lawyer’s job satisfaction and life satisfaction can also have an effect on whether or not they experience more or less symptoms of burnout. After establishing that there is a problem, I researched potential solutions to increasing life satisfaction for lawyers within the existing flawed system. I discussed five solutions proposed in the book The Happy Lawyer by Nancy Levit and Douglas Linder, which included (1) gaining more control, (2) establishing more connections, (3) increasing flow experiences, (4) identifying pleasures and strengths, and (5) making downward comparisons. Finally, as a cumulation of all my research, I offer a final suggestion to increase life satisfaction, which is to create and stick to a schedule that works for the individual lawyer.

Through my academic career at Arizona State University, I have learned the importance of implementing mindful habits into one’s personal and professional life. Being introduced to mindfulness has changed my life for the better. My hope for completing this thesis is to inspire other college students and future social workers to embrace the present moment, while being aware of internal thoughts and feelings as well as external stimuli. While implementing mindful habits can seem daunting and complex, one must understand that being mindful is an ongoing life-long journey. Ultimately, we owe it to ourselves and the individuals and communities we serve to engage in mindfulness, and truly be at peace with our inner-being key words: mindfulness, social work, burnout.