Pamela Wible

Pamela Laine Wible was born in 1967 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania^[1] to physician parents: her mother is a psychiatrist and her father was a pathologist.^[2] She spent time growing up both in Philadelphia as well as in rural Texas.^[2] She would accompany her father in his work in the morgue, and she spent time visiting state mental hospitals with her mother.^[2]

Pamela Wible attended Wellesley College (in Wellesley, Massachusetts) as an undergraduate^[3][4] and then received her MD degree in 1993 from the medical school of the University of Texas Medical Branch (in Galveston, Texas).^[5] In 1996 she completed her training in Family Medicine at the University of Arizona Department of Family and Community Medicine.^[6]

Upon completing her medical training, Wible worked for several years in a variety of medical settings, including hospital-based clinics and community health centers.^[7] Wible began to experience suicidal ideation due to depression and pressures related to her job^[8][9] when she became increasingly frustrated with short patient-appointments and other restrictions, and so she stopped her work in the year 2004, and then in 2005 she held a series of "town hall" meetings where she invited community members to write out what they felt would be the features of an "ideal clinic".^[7] In the same year Wible opened up a new clinic in the city of Eugene, Oregon which was based on the recommendations from the community.^[7] She has also helped do a similar town-hall feedback session with a hospital in Chippewa Valley in 2010.^[10]

Wible's clinic includes same-day appointments, appointments that start on time and a smaller practice size.^[11] She also emphasizes "patient-focused medicine".^[8] The change in her practice helped her enjoy her work as a physician again.^[9]

Wible has set up an anonymous suicide prevention hotline to help doctors and medical students who are contemplating suicide.^[12] She also collects stories of doctor suicides as a way of raising awareness of the problem.^[13][14] Wible's work on doctor suicide prevention is featured in the documentary film Do No Harm: Exposing the Hippocratic Hoax, by filmmaker Robyn Symon.^[15] In 2015, she spoke at TEDMED about the problem of suicide in the medical profession.^[16] Wible also has a blog called Ideal Medical Care which shares physician's stories of their treatment while being trained and also stories of suicides by physicians and trainees.^[15]

Wible has also been critical of medical animal testing.^[17]

In February 2023, three United States senators sent a letter to the Department of Justice^[18] which cited a study by Wible^[19] in a call to investigate state medical boards which discriminate against physicians on the basis of disabilities, including mental health issues.

• Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind (2012). ISBN 978-0985710309
• Physician Suicide Letters Answered, (2016). ISBN 978-0985710323
• Human Rights Violations in Medicine: A-to-Z Action Guide, (2019). ISBN 978-0985710330