220 SelfWork: Careers That Kill: A Conversation with Dr. Adam Hill

This is the first in a series here on SelfWork about careers that can kill. Over the next few months, we’re going to interview people who are led to careers that hold within them the ever-increasing danger of suicidal ideation or suicide itself. Doctors, police officers, the military. We are losing the people that we, as a culture, expect to do very difficult jobs psychologically. Yet the professions themselves don’t encourage mental health treatment, or even disparage those that reveal struggle.

Sometimes you don’t know why, but you’re drawn to someone or to their story. Adam Hill is one of those people for me. Adam presented himself as a thoughtful guy as well as being a doctor who’d trained as a pediatric oncologist at some of the finest schools and research centers the USA has to offer. And then came the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic. He’s the author of Long Walk Out of The Woods – which when you read the book, you totally get that he’s not simply talking metaphorically, but quite literally -as he nearly ended his own life in a deep, sheltered place in the woods.

So I wanted to talk to this man who’d risked everything career-wise to reveal his struggle with severe depression and alcoholism –  and become not only a doctor, but now a mental health advocate whose fighting to change how his profession’s licensing boards and entire medical community views seeking help for mental illness or substance abuse.

So I present to you Dr. Adam Hill. His story is riveting and may carry within it something important for you or your loved one to hear.

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You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression has arrived and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism or need for control which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

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