{"id":850,"date":"2008-01-16T09:48:48","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T09:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/the-falling-down-professions.html"},"modified":"2008-01-16T09:48:48","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T09:48:48","slug":"the-falling-down-professions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/the-falling-down-professions.html","title":{"rendered":"The Falling Down Professions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Beliefnet’s Lilit Marcus<\/a> for forwarding to me a New York Times article about how more first year doctors and lawyers are suffering from depression, and what companies are doing to improve their retention rates. To get to the article, click here.<\/a> Following is an excerpt:<\/p>\n

YOU can\u2019t say law firms aren\u2019t trying. At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a \u201chappiness committee,\u201d offering candy apples and milkshakes to brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. Perhaps this will serve as an example to other firms, which studies show lose, on average, nearly a fifth of their associates in any given year, in an industry in which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at some point in their careers.
\nLast year, Cravath, Swaine & Moore tried a more direct approach, offering associates an added bonus of as much as $50,000, on top of regular annual bonuses that range from $35,000 to $60,000.<\/p>\n


\nAt the august Sullivan & Cromwell, partners in 2006 began a program, groundbreaking in white-shoe firms, encouraging the uttering of \u201cthank you\u201d and \u201cgood work\u201d to harried underlings, as reported in The Wall Street Journal.
\nProbably not a bad move at a firm that had been hemorrhaging associates at a rate of about 30 percent a year. (The rate dipped below 25 percent in the year after the program was started, although Fred Rich, a partner, said better etiquette was simply an element in a \u201cvery broad agenda\u201d focused on more open communication.)
\nSo now who\u2019s going to cheer up the doctors?
\nAs of 2006, nearly 60 percent of doctors polled by the American College of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine because of low morale, and nearly 70 percent knew someone who already had.
\nIn a typical complaint, Dr. Yul Ejnes, 47, a general internist in Cranston, R.I., said he was recently forced by Medicare to fill out requisition forms for a wheelchair-bound patient who needed to replace balding tires. \u201cI\u2019m a doctor,\u201d he said, \u201cnot Mr. Goodwrench.\u201d
\nMake no mistake, law and medicine \u2014 the most elite of the traditional professions \u2014 have always been demanding. But they were also unquestionably prestigious. Sure, bankers made big money and professors held impressive degrees.
\nBut in the days when a successful career was built on a number of tacitly recognized pillars \u2014 outsize pay, long-term security, impressive schooling and authority over grave matters \u2014 doctors and lawyers were perched atop them all.
\nNow, those pillars have started to wobble.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lilit also produces and writes part of the blog\/website called “Save the Assistants.” <\/a>Hear what they had to say about this issue by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Beliefnet’s Lilit Marcus for forwarding to me a New York Times article about how more first year doctors and lawyers are suffering from depression, and what companies are doing to improve their retention rates. To get to the article, click here. Following is an excerpt: YOU can\u2019t say law firms aren\u2019t trying. At…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Falling Down Professions - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/01\/the-falling-down-professions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Falling Down Professions - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thanks to Beliefnet’s Lilit Marcus for forwarding to me a New York Times article about how more first year doctors and lawyers are suffering from depression, and what companies are doing to improve their retention rates. 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