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QUEBEC

After the suicide of a 27-year-old medical resident less than two weeks ago raised concerns about working conditions for doctors-in-training, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette said med students in Quebec aren’t under too much stress.

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“The pressure today is much less than it was, say, 15 years ago,” he said. “It’s much, much, much more accommodating than it was in my time.”

Barrette said medical students aren’t at any greater risk of depression and suicide than the general public. “This is a situation that many, many people unfortunately experience in their life, especially, I would say, in their youth,” he said.

On Nov. 15, Émilie Marchand, a medical resident at Notre-Dame Hospital who had recently taken time off for depression, didn’t show up for work when she was on call. Two days, later she was found dead in her car after committing suicide, La Presse reported.

In a letter, a co-worker of Marchand’s, Étienne Leroux Groleau, said the demands of his residency led him to become excessively anxious. He criticized a “macho and competitive system that, over the years, continues to maintain non-written rules such as that psychological distress is a sign of weakness.”