The price of silence: time to address the hidden cost of domestic violence in academic medicine

We are survivors of domestic violence. It feels odd to see it written out so starkly in black and white—to acknowledge it publicly nearly 30 years after the fact. That said, it is long past time that we talked about how domestic violence affects people like us in academic medicine: one, an adult psychiatrist at tertiary-care academic medical centres, psychiatric hospitals, and a patient-centered medical home for people with HIV for nearly 30 years; and the other, an epidemiologist and biostatistician involved in HIV and tuberculosis clinical and translational research at R1 research institutions for nearly 15 years. It is past time to discuss what it means for our personal experiences, how we live our lives, and how we interact with our peers in academia; how we resolve the alien home environments and experiences that we endure with an often competitive and strenuous work environment. It is also more important than ever that the medical community improves the recognition of dangerous and unhealthy situations related to domestic violence, including post-traumatic reactions and home-based conflicts that can manifest in the workplace, among well meaning colleagues.