Medical culture needs to change: AMA

Doctors are taking aim at the high rates of depression, suicide and burnout in their profession with calls for an all-out attack on a system that puts them at risk.

Australian Medical Association vice president Stephen Parnis will tell a Melbourne doctors' conference aimed at improving the well being of medical professionals on Friday that he has grieved for friends and colleagues who have harmed themselves or taken their own life.

"I am well and truly over a culture of finger pointing and blame," he says as he calls on all areas of the medical sector to work together.