International- A doctor in Japan took his own life after working more than 200 hours of overtime in a month.
- His family said he developed depression after not taking a day off in three months.
A 26-year-old doctor in Japan took his own life last year after working more than 200 hours of overtime in a single month, his family said.
Takashima Shingo had been working in the gastroenterology department of the Konan Medical Center in Kobe in central Japan when he died by suicide last May, according to the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi.
The family's lawyer said that Takashima had not taken a day off for three months, and had worked 207 hours of overtime in the month immediately preceding his death, CNN reported.
He was deemed by the Nishinomiya Labor Standards Inspection Office to have developed depression from working such long hours, which led to his death, his family said in a news conference last week, according to the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi.
According to remarks made by the office and reported on by the newspaper, Takashima "had just become a medical specialist and was assigned the same kind of duties as senior doctors, being instructed to write reports and give conference presentations, which led to extremely long working hours."
His mother, Junko Takashima, told a press conference on August 18 that her son had become pale and his room littered with trash in the lead-up to his death, according to The Mainichi.
She said that her son would complain that life was "too hard" and "no one would help him," according to CNN.
Takashima's brother, who was not named, said at the press conference that the doctor worked an "unbelievable number" of hours, CNN reported.
He added: "I don't think the hospital is taking a solid approach to labor management in the first place."
The hospital at a press conference rebuffed claims that it was responsible for the doctor becoming overworked and dying, per CNN.
According to the news outlet, a spokesperson said: "There are many times when [doctors] spend time studying on their own and sleeping according to their physiological needs. Due to the very high degree of freedom, it is not possible to accurately determine working hours."
The hospital did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Japan's culture of chronic overwork leading to deaths is a well-known problem, which governments have tried to remedy for decades.
Ever since the late 1970s, there has been a word to describe the troubling phenomenon — karoshi, which literally means death by overwork.
There have been numerous examples of karoshi in recent years, such as when officials concluded in 2017 that the 2013 death of a reporter for Japan's national broadcaster NHK died from congestive heart failure due to overwork.
The problem of karoshi is particularly apparent in Japan's health sector, according to academic literature.
A 2022 study published in the BMJ found that many Japanese resident doctors showed "a tendency to experience burnout and suicidal ideation" as a result, in part, of overwork.