Australia has been failing its doctors for decades. We need to do better

Peter had a rare talent. He could put you at ease with a gentle smile while performing complex surgery with precision and care. I should know. Peter delivered my son, Jack, by caesarian in 2004. When a person can pull a baby out of your innards, keep you and your baby safe throughout the process, and still take the time to share a moment of joy, it makes you love them.

I don't know why Peter ended his life on May 26. But, as the daughter of an obstetrician, I can guess at some of the reasons why Peter may have struggled.

My dad, retired now, was (and still is) another rare talent. He is everything you could want in a doctor: frighteningly intelligent, unfailingly competent and highly compassionate, with a photographic memory and a dedication to serving others, often at great personal cost. He is as solid and stable as a rock. Over a 50-year career, he delivered more than 10,000 babies.

But Dad's life, and the lived experience of our family, has been completely dominated by the often cruel and relentless demands of his job. As a young doctor, he worked 70+ hours a week and was badly bullied by senior doctors for his trouble.

Over the next 50 years he worked inhuman hours: routinely leaving by 7am and home at 9pm. He was regularly called out in the middle of the night and on weekends (babies don't comply with business hours). I remember decades of overwork and exhaustion, with a migraine thrown in every weekend.

We didn't see dad much. I don't recall ever seeing him rested and healthy until much later in life, after a stress-induced illness nearly killed him and he finally had some time to rest. My prevailing worry as a young girl, then a teenager, and into adulthood, was that Dad's job would kill him.

All of this would be ironic, if it wasn't so tragic. - a profession spent saving lives and improving the health of others grinding its own practitioners into the ground.

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Aside from the exhaustion, there was the relentless pressure of keeping people alive. Who among us could perform complex surgery after a 12-hour shift without making a mistake every now and then? And yet, mistakes are not tolerable - not to the doctors who strive to be superhuman, nor to the patients who are in their hands.

Sometimes things go wrong, despite everyone's best efforts. Because life is like that. Babies die. Mothers die. It has always been that way, and probably always will be. But the grief and strain that accompanies a bad outcome is devastating for the medical practitioners involved.

On the extremely rare occasions that a baby or mum died in his care, Dad would arrive home, white-faced and grief-stricken. There was nothing to say or do, it just had to be borne. But do you think he was ever able to take a day or two off to grieve, reset and rebuild? Never. The system could not grant him a break, because there was always more work to do, and not enough people to do it.

As a young girl, I could never understand why "they" couldn't just sort it out - get more doctors, share the load, factor in sick time and leave, like every other workplace. As an adult, I am still perplexed. Most of the problems are still there, more than 50 years after Dad started out as a junior doctor.

Some things have certainly improved. But the chronic staff shortages, bullying behaviours (sometimes from patients, sometimes other staff) and the shameful lack of mental health support remains.

I understand that the issues are many and complex. But surely the issues can't be so intractable that solutions can't be found? The losses are incalculable, and we have to do better.