Two of his colleagues took their own lives while he was working at a hospital in England, prior to joining Vancouver Coastal Health in 2020. One may have been traumatized after volunteering to work with COVID-19 patients at the height of the pandemic and the other showed no visible signs of internal turmoil.

“Outwardly everything looked OK, even on the day he died,” says Iqbal. “It just came out of the blue. He didn’t reach out to anybody. That’s why we have this peer support group – to hopefully provide an avenue for people to reach out before they do something drastic. And it’s also completely confidential.”

Studies show approximately 90 per cent of doctors turn to other doctors when there’s an event at work and they’d like to talk to someone.

“Physicians often face chronic stresses that come with the job, along with a struggle for a healthy work-life balance,” says Iqbal. “I had to teach myself this after suffering a stress-related health condition with my vision in 2017, after a combination of work and home life difficulties. That’s when I first decided to explore physician wellness.”

He was able to fully recover his vision two months later after some adjustments to improve his wellbeing.