Lynn McDonald practiced medicine in Bend for 27 years. His wife, Jan, said he excelled in the often-chaotic, fast-moving environment of an emergency room.
“The great thing about emergency room medicine, which seemed to fit him, was because he was a really good diagnostician,” she said, “he would say that he really enjoyed trying to figure it out.”
But by the early 2000s, his wife says, Dr. McDonald began saying he no longer enjoyed the job. He worked all the time.
“He would come home, and he would be exhausted, emotionally exhausted — even to the point of being somewhat sarcastic,” she said. “You could tell that he really did not love who he was.”
McDonald tried to change his career by investing in a residential development called The Shire, where the homes had thatched roofs and the tool sheds looked like hobbit holes. It was whimsical, his wife said, and it made him happy. But then came the crash of 2008. McDonald eventually killed himself.
“I think he was getting burned out big time the last six years of his life,” she said.