Sad tale from MIT
octo
By Beckett W. Sterner
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Graduate student Bhuwan Singh was found dead on Friday afternoon, said
MIT Police Chief John DiFava.
Singh's body was found in a storage room near his lab and office in
Building 13 said Seth Horowitz, press officer for the Middlesex
District Attorney's office. He died from asphyxiation, Horowitz said.
"We don't believe that there was foul play," and "we're not operating
under the circumstances" that the death was suspicious, he said.
"There isn't any indication of violence or foul play," DiFava said.
The DA does not typically release the full medical examiner's report
on the death when there are no signs of crime, such as death by
natural causes, accident, or suicide.
Academics, friends key to Singh
Chandra Singh, Bhuwan's father, said at the memorial service yesterday
that Bhuwan admired Mother Theresa the most, even more than Albert
Einstein.
However, both Bhuwan and his younger brother Barun Singh G, current
Graduate Student Council president, excelled in academics. Bhuwan
enrolled in Auburn University after finishing 10th grade and entered
the PhD program at MIT at age 21, according to the biography given at
his memorial. Barun followed a similar path.
"I never imagined that there would be a day I would doubt that I
didn't understand something very basic" about my son, Bhuwan's father
said at the memorial service.
It was not clear that Bhuwan wanted "to continue to be the best at
something that didn't give him happiness," he said, referring to
academics.
rick++
They reported about 45 in the last 65 years. At a turnover of 2,000
students a year that is 1 per 3,000 students per year.
The US national suicide rate for college-age students is 1 per 4,000 per year.
(Beware of arguing numbers at MIT.)
Three suicides in 1999-2000, all accompanied by wrongful death
suits, prompted MIT to offer an unlimited mental health benefit (which was
previously limited by staff and sessions per year). One of these suits became
a Dateline TV episode. The claims of both sides are interesting. The parents
argue for extensive monitoring of student lives by college officials.
Mass. law requires prompt filing of an intent to sue if there is the
remotest chance of carrying it out. This along with an approximately $7M
payout for a recent alcohol death inspires lawsuits.
Abe Kohen
Every preventable suicide is out of line.
> They reported about 45 in the last 65 years. At a turnover of 2,000
> students a year that is 1 per 3,000 students per year.
or 33 per 100,000 ?
>
> The US national suicide rate for college-age students is 1 per 4,000 per
year.
or 25 per 100,000 ?
> (Beware of arguing numbers at MIT.)
I was intrigued by your numbers so I googled it.
What I found was:
The __overall__ suicide rate in the US is 10.7 per 100,000 per year.
(Psychiatric News June 4, 2004.)
College suicide rates are hard to come by.
The Cornell Daily Sun (02/13/2001) reported:
"From 1990 to 2000, nine students killed themselves at Cornell, representing
5.7 student deaths per 100,000 per year, according to the article. These
statistics put Cornell in the fourth position out of the eleven peer
institutions the Globe ranked.
With eleven suicides in the same number of years, a __student__ death rate
of 10.2, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) far surpassed
Harvard University (7.4 deaths per 100,000 per year) and Duke University
(6.1 suicides per 100,000 per year). MIT's suicide rate is also 53 percent
greater than the national average among college students, which is 10 per
100,000 per year."
> Three suicides in 1999-2000, all accompanied by wrongful death
> suits, prompted MIT to offer an unlimited mental health benefit (which was
> previously limited by staff and sessions per year). One of these suits
became
> a Dateline TV episode. The claims of both sides are interesting. The
parents
> argue for extensive monitoring of student lives by college officials.
> Mass. law requires prompt filing of an intent to sue if there is the
> remotest chance of carrying it out. This along with an approximately $7M
> payout for a recent alcohol death inspires lawsuits.
I personally have been grateful to the medical staff MIT Medical, and
especially to its Chief of Medicine.
However some of the beaureaucrats at MIT Medical seem to suffer from
institutional autism, and as such it is not at all surprising that some
parents could not reach an amicable agreement with them.
Abe
P.S.: God bless Ronald Reagan