Great essay for those finishing residency or new in practice. As you progress further in your career, you have to wear many hats. The balance is quite difficult, and there's an inescapable weight to what we do. @Adam_Weiner535, these feelings get much worse once you've had some major complications and missed diagnoses. Life gets much heavier once your small cemetery starts filling up, which often coincides with increased family stressors, growing children in 100 activities, increased academic and administrative roles, increased surgical volume and case complexity, chronic neck/back/hand pain, etc. The only thing that really alleviates this burden is peer support, so please be sure you have that as well as a physically and emotionally-available mentor.