Suicide, like suicidal behavior in general, is a global public health problem, a personal tragedy for a significant number of people, and a highly stigmatized sphere of public consciousness. Suicide as a voluntary act aimed to end one’s life is rightly associated with psychiatry, but suicide prevention is a task not only for psychiatrists, but for the entire healthcare system, and in close cooperation with other departments and structures. Assessing the risk of suicide in a clinical setting is not an easy task, so the more trained and informed medical professionals are about risk factors and risk groups, the main models that explain suicide, about the neurobiological, psychological and social mechanisms underlying suicidal behavior, about the most effective prevention strategies, the more likely they are to detect and prevent suicide in a timely manner, as well as to resist their own suicidal tendencies. Suicidology has long acquired the features of a separate scientific direction, but as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge it has been developing mainly in classical universities and much less in medical universities. In this descriptive review, the authors sought to present the most up-to-date and relevant aspects of this area for the general medical community, and for medical doctors of various categories.