A stigma even in profession that treats it

● University of Cape Town medical students have started posting photographs of their antidepressants on Instagram in response to the suicide of Professor Bongani Mayosi.

Fifth-year student Anrike Krause said it was a spontaneous reaction to their dean’s death and an attempt to break a stigma about depression which penetrates even the profession that is supposed to treat it.

“From my doctor’s perspective, I think: ‘Take your pills, they make you feel better.’ But there are some days when you wake up depressed, don’t get out of bed, and don’t take your pills,” she said.

“Everyone will at one stage in their life deal with some form of mental illness in this profession. It’s a fact of being a doctor, but no-one tells you when you sign up.”

Krause estimated that a third of her class are on antidepressants, but said: “There is a big difference between knowing what depression is and how it works and how it needs to be treated and living with it.”

Although she had taken pictures of her medication, she had not posted them, fearing a backlash from her traditional Afrikaans community, which equated seeing a psychiatrist with madness, she said.

Mayosi’s suicide had shattered the picture her peers had of a depression-free future when their studies ended, she said.

“We tell each other so often [that we’re depressed because] of the pressure of working and studying. Then you hear from interns about their long hours and stress, and how they are working in horrible circumstances and struggling with mental health issues.

“There is always this picture that you will get to a point where it ends. But Prof Mayosi was the top point of what you can achieve as a doctor in this country — best researcher, great clinical doctor … he’s done heart transplants and he still wasn’t free of it.”