Dont think I ever spent a minute of any day wondering why I did this work, or whether it was worth it. The call to protect lifeand not merely life but anothers identity; it is perhaps not too much to say anothers soulwas obvious in its sacredness. Before operating on a patients brain, I realized, I must first understand his mind: his identity, his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that life end. The cost of my dedication to succeed was high, and the ineluctable failures brought me nearly unbearable guilt. Those burdens are what make medicine holy and wholly impossible: in taking up anothers cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi